Bellasapien
by ninharsag
Summary: Bella travels to San Francisco to present her work at a conference where she unexpectedly meets Edward, her dazzling ex-boyfriend.  A civilisation and species in decay, mysterious interference...who and what will Bella choose?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: The character names come from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight (not surprisingly)**

**Hopefully this will fix the disgraceful editing. I apologise sincerely. How embarassment!  
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"Thank you again for the referral, I will keep you informed of the outcome, yours sincerely etc". Dr Bella Swan put down the microrecorder and sighed, then glanced quickly at the clock on the wall. One more folder on her desk, one more patient to see, then hopefully she would make it to the hospital on time to keep her appointment with the Professor.

Bella's consulting rooms had the slightly barren, unlived-in appearance of a young professional just starting out in practice. The dark bookcase was relatively empty but the pale green walls were decorated with pleasant, abstract artworks. Her laptop was plugged into a nest of cables in the middle of the large wooden desk. Apart from the laptop and a spilling pile of patient files the desktop was empty.

Bella reached for the last file on the right of the unsteady pile. Attached to the front of the file was a printed result. Skimming the ultrasound result caused Bella to heave another long and heartfelt sigh. Then she glanced at the clock one more time and got up resolutely from her desk to open the door to the waiting room.

There was only one couple left in the room. They were seated together, holding hands and looking tense. When Bella called the woman's name they stood together and walked towards her still holding hands. The woman appeared apprehensive but the man's face was impassive. Smoothly Bella welcomed them, apologised for any waiting they may have done and directed them to take a seat next to her desk.

"I'm sure you would like to talk about your ultrasound result" she started and the woman nodded her head. Closer to her, Bella noticed that her eyes were darkly circled. In her gentlest voice she began to discuss the findings. The ultrasound specialist had noted an absent forearm on the left, an atrial septal defect, right talipes and choroid plexus cysts. Bella translated the medical details to the woman and her husband. The most serious defect was the lack of the lower part of the left arm. The specialist had thought that the hand appeared normal but it was most likely that it would actually possess some abnormalities or not function. The "hole in the heart" was probably minor and would possibly close by itself or might require surgery at one to two years of age. Talipes, a condition producing a misshapen foot, could be corrected by a number of techniques including some minor surgery. The choroid plexus cyst meant nothing by itself but together with the other abnormalities might suggest a chromosomal problem. The ultrasound specialist had performed an amniocentesis. It would take a further ten days to get the results of the genetic analysis but the early screening test was normal.

The woman digested most of this information in a frightened silence. When Bella paused, the husband cleared his throat. "The doctor who did the ultrasound called it a syndrome. He said it had reached epidemic proportions. What was he talking about?"

Bella nodded. The abnormalities fit the criteria for being called "Major multiple non-specific structural abnormality syndrome" or MSAS for short. It was true she admitted, that the diagnosis of abnormalities like those of the woman's fetus had become much more common quite suddenly over a period of a few years. The picture was always the same, normal early screening tests, then a finding of unrelated structural-type abnormalities at the midtrimester ultrasound. Sometimes there were genetic abnormalities, sometimes there weren't. There genetic abnormalities were apparently random and some experts argued that they were an unrelated finding, they were too disparate to be related, ranging from trisomies to minor deletions. All sorts of wild scare mongering was going around. People blamed everything including wireless internet, cosmic radiation and the use of certain types of plastics. The media had been particularly enthusiastic, suggesting new causes almost every week.

Bella was as reassuring as she could be. Yes, the defects fitted the description of MSAS but they needed to wait for the final genetic results which might yet reveal a chromosomal abnormality as the cause. They needed to have an appointment with a geneticist to discuss the possibility of an obscure syndrome, they needed to think about their options. They might want to talk to pediatric surgeons about the sort of surgery their child might need to have. They might want to consider the possibility of termination. They would need to make that choice.

Bella's flow of words halted and she caught the woman looking at her despairingly. As their eyes met, the woman asked "Was it something I did? Is it my mobile phone? I haven't used it since the ultrasound but they say the radiation is in the air. What causes it?"

Bella had seen this response too often. "No-one knows the cause" she said, shaking her head. "There has been a lot of speculation in the press but most of it is just wild rumours. We just don't know enough yet". "If it is the phones, I will sue them" said the Father vehemently. "They'll pay for it". Bella smiled as sympathetically as she could. She thought it was interesting how people had mostly latched on to the theory that it was caused by mobile phones. The other most popular theory was genetically modified food, the scapegoat for all sorts of medical problems. It crossed Bella's mind that these two might be most popular because they came with someone to blame, particularly multinational corporations potentially with large amounts for money for class-action payouts. For herself, she didn't see how that made it better but she knew that people's desire for some kind of vengeance was revealed in these circumstances. She doubted both theories but had nothing else to offer.

"No-one knows what has caused it" she began quietly but firmly. She had no desire to be writing statements for crackpot lawyers all day. "There are a number of theories apart from those two. I'm sure it was not your fault in any way. Just bad luck. As a matter of fact I am about to attend a conference in the US to address that very topic. That's why I asked you to come in so urgently. I'll be away for the next week. I'm presenting a study on the condition to a large international conference. There'll be some very important international speakers at the conference and I'm hoping that I might come back with some answers for you".

The couple were silent for a moment. Bella moved to close the session as she had an important appointment, but an obscure feeling of guilt prompted her to give them just a few extra minutes. "I'm so sorry to be going away at this time" she said almost beseechingly "But honestly I'm hoping that patients like yourselves will benefit from this overall. Dr Rosalie Hale is covering me, you can reach her through my secretary or through the same call service. I'll tell her all about you. She's lovely."

When the couple finally left the room, Bella realized that she had been holding her breath slightly. Consultations like that had become more and more common over the last few years. At first, her colleagues just started talking about it in the theatre tearooms. A coincidence, they all said, or jokingly, something in the water. Then the hospital ultrasound department held a grand round. A six month audit showed the numbers had increased by 20%. A year later the numbers of general structural abnormalities had increased by a further 10%. Another year later and they were still showing a further 5% increase.

When the audit was presented at the local perinatal conference, the media picked up the story instantly. Branding it an epidemic, journalists managed to catch unwary notable obstetricians making references to a random selection of possible causes. The journalists picked the most sensational ones, usually also the ones with the least evidence. For a few weeks after the conference, almost every night the tabloids brought out a new story, another distraught woman and her desperate family. They interviewed obstetricians, geneticists, naturopaths, religious fundamentalists and psychics all with frightening and unjustified conclusions. Increasingly serious anchors stared directly into television cameras and asked the frightening question "What does this mean and will mankind survive?"

Bella had been looking for a new research topic. As a newly qualified obstetrician trying to establish herself, her private practice was not as busy as some of her colleagues and she also had closer links to the hospital. One of the ways to establish yourself was to take up some work at a public hospital. This served the dual purpose of increasing your referrals from midwives asked by patients to recommend someone and also supplying you with some regular income to pay for the expenses like setting up your own rooms. Bella was taken aback to find out how much it all cost, the rooms, the secretary, the software, the stationery, the cost of equipment and the use of a sterilization service had all been daunting without even considering her medical defense expenses. Older colleagues had been supportive and had offered everything from advice to cast-off examination couches. Someone she had long respected for his caring manner with patients told her that when he started in practice, his first booked patient had experienced an early miscarriage which had helped him to pay his first month of bills.

Part of her continuing association with the hospital included an honorary appointment with the University Department. Lecturing and teaching was another good source of definite income. During her specialty training Bella had been involved to varying degrees with a few research studies and although it was not her main focus, she had certainly found it interesting. There was no question however that as part of her role she was expected to produce some original research. A retrospective epidemiological study was relatively straightforward to perform, the difficult part was the analysis and justifying her conclusions. Bella had asked for help from her old biostatistics lecturer. He was a great guy who had become a friend over the two years of the epidemiology course. He was always there with offers of statistical help for his previous students. Unfortunately, this meant that although he was very helpful, he was always very busy. After her abstract had been accepted for a presentation at the conference, Bella had grown increasingly desperate in her pleas to him to complete the analysis, even at one time contemplating going to the University's expensive professional service. Luckily, her lecturer had come through a day or two ago. Early enough for her to be confident about having something to actually talk about at the conference but late enough that she knew she was still going to be working on her talk on the plane.

Bella hadn't discussed the project with her Head of Department in any detail, although, as always, she had checked for his general approval before starting anything. She saw him occasionally at meetings and in the antenatal clinic she attended once a week. He was a large man with a large personality and a fan in his office so that he could smoke secretly without setting off the fire alarms. He always had a number of international trials running. In the last few years he had been responsible for the trials demonstrating the benefits of the new hormone contraceptive formulations, fourth generation progestins and a new synthetic estrogen. He had presented the data at many prestigious conferences both at home and overseas. He was currently running a trial of a new fetal monitoring system. He was thought to be unusually entrepreneurial for a professor and was rumoured to have a stake in the company manufacturing the new system. He was well-connected in the international scientific community and generally well spoken of by his peers. If there was any conflict of interest in his running a trial of the equipment made by a company he was closely involved with, no-one would criticize him openly. He was bluff and personable and Bella had always got on well with him.

Last night she had checked her e-mails late at night to find a message. "Dear Bella" it began, "Please drop into office to discuss your conference presentation tomorrow before you leave. Most important. Do not leave the country without speaking to me first! I will be in during lunchtime. Can you be at my office at 1pm? Professor Aro Volturi". Bella had e-mailed back in the affirmative and then spent considerable time wondering what he could want to say to her. She couldn't help thinking that such a summons was untoward. He had never been that concerned about her presentations previously. She was even more distressed by the fact that she didn't have the presentation finished, than she would otherwise have been. Although she had no reason to think there might be anything wrong she was not exactly looking forward to the interview.

Having seen the last patient out, Bella closed down her computer and detached it from the surrounding spaghetti tangle of wires. Hastily she gathered up her coat, her computer satchel and her pen and raced out the door. At the desk she stopped to hand her mini tape record to Raymond the receptionist.

Bella had inherited Raymond from the previous obstetrician who had rented the rooms. Her name was Kristen Paterson. Amongst the rather conservative staff of her hospital, Dr Paterson had always stood out. She wore tight red or black dresses with high-heeled black boots and had flowing frizzy blond hair. She was never seen without a slash of bright red lipstick, even at 2 o'clock in the morning. She was enthusiastic about her work to an extent which could seem frenzied. Some of her colleagues muttered about her eccentricities but Bella rather liked her. She had covered her practice for her a few times as a senior registrar. One day shortly before Bella had received her fellowship Kristen had invited her to her house for drinks on a Friday night when she was not on-call. Over a couple of bottle of champagne she broke the news that she had decided to retire from practice to join an artists' colony in the country somewhere and offered Bella the lease of her rooms. Glowing with good-humour and alcohol Bella had agreed immediately. The evening had gone on with the arrival of some of Kristen's artistic friends bearing takeaway Vietnamese food and a detailed tour of some of her hostess' collection of artwork including some of her own which seemed to solely depictions of male nudes in various attitudes. More guests continued to arrive throughout the evening including a man who Bella thought the obstetrician had introduced as "the latest in my long line of lovers", a statement which, even very drunk had made Bella blush with embarrassment and hastily excuse herself on the grounds of a need for a glass of water. Somewhere during the evening, she was introduced to Raymond who was wearing a costume resembling a medieval jester suit. Shortly after that she managed to call a taxi and get herself home. She told her husband, not very coherently, about Kristen's offer before collapsing entirely into bed. The next day, with a terrible hangover, she went over to collect her car and it seemed impolite not to ring the doorbell. The door was answered in a dignified fashion by a grey haired man who she thought might have been introduced as the current lover the previous night but she couldn't be sure. Close behind him was Kristen, dressed in a voluminous red bathrobe and looking as if she had just got out of bed but still with her trademark slash of red lipstick. Bella was reluctant to mention the offer of the rooms but Kristen referred to the deal straight away, reminding Bella that she had agreed to continue to look after Kristen's special patients if they liked her. It appeared that the offer did not include much in the way of furniture or equipment most of which was leased, but it did include the receptionist.

Raymond was dedicated, hard-working and very obviously gay. Her colleague had given him a glowing character and promised that all the women loved him; he kept them happy when she was running late by buying them jelly beans and he could be relied upon to chat knowledgably on any subject from home renovation to urinary incontinence. Raymond had held an extraordinary variety of jobs in the past including professional juggler. He started working for her colleague during a period where even his varied skills couldn't find him work and after a while, found that the role of receptionist suited him. He was neat and organized and genuinely interested in people. Now, a year later, Bella didn't know what she would do without him.

"So you're off tomorrow then?" he said as soon as she appeared in front of her desk. "Jetsetting off around the world, and leaving me here. Seriously, did you say you were going to San Francisco? Without moi?" He produced an affected pout and threw his hands in the air. Bella smiled and replied that he knew perfectly well she was going to San Francisco because he booked the tickets for her and that if he wanted to come too he should have said so and found himself a replacement to cover the office while he was away. Raymond grinned and dropped his exaggerated gay act. He loved San Francisco he said but going with her would be too restrictive. "Are you saying I'm not good enough to introduce to your friends?" she teased. "Of course not!" he replied. "They're not good enough for you. I mean it. Seriously. You haven't seen them," he added, pulling a face. Bella gave him her dictation cassette and reminded him of her cover arrangements while she was away. She started to go through the list of things he had to do and check although she had already gone through it about four times. "And I've just seen that couple with the diagnosis of multiple fetal abnormalities" she added. "They might want to see someone while I'm away. Get them in to see Shane if they need to. And Mrs Cope…" "Yes, yes we've been through it and I have it all in hand" he interrupted. "Now off you go to chat to your nice Professor. And for God sakes, while you're doing all this terribly important conference stuff try to enjoy yourself just a little bit!'

Bella laughed. She was aware that Raymond thought her life was too one-sided, consisting of too much work. "You know how to get me if you need me" she persisted. "Don't ring me because I won't answer the phone but you can always SMS me or we can skype if we need to".

"Get out of here!" the receptionist said playfully. Bella said a quick thanks and ran out the door. When she looked back through the glass door of the office, Raymond playfully blew her a kiss and waved goodbye.

Bella dashed up the stairs to the sixth floor, bolted past the reception desk with a weak grin and pulled up in a rush outside Professor Volturi' door. There she paused and tried to get her breathing under control while she checked the clock on her phone against the one on the wall over the door and listened to see if he were with anyone. Not hearing anything from within, she knocked politely and waited to hear a response from inside. There was an appreciable pause and then a voice called "Come in".

Bella came into the room and took the chair indicated at a table set up in front of the desk. The fan in the wall behind the desk was working which was a telltale sign that Professor Volturi had been smoking furtively up until a few moments earlier. The rumour around the hospital was that he had an enclosed ashtray in the bottom drawer of his desk but no-one had ever seen it. It was also rumoured that he wore nicotine patches to last him through clinic. No-one had ever documented him smoking outside the front entrance but then Bella considered that she could understand his desire to avoid that. Most of the inpatients could be seen down there in dressing gowns on cold mornings or sleeveless t-shirts in the heat, some of them dragging along their IVs on poles or sitting in wheelchairs. Staff hurrying to work in the morning generally tried to avoid meeting their eyes so that they could continue to pretend to believe them when the patients tried to claim that they had totally given up. When she was a registrar Bella used to greet her own unit patients at the door and tell them that she would see them up on the ward in half an hour for the round. It would not be seemly for a professor. On the other hand, if that wasn't enough motivation to give the wretched things up, she didn't know what would be.

Professor Volturi came forward and took a chair. He had longish hair going gray in the front and a Machiavellian beard which, according to various photographs around the department, he had been sporting for years, or at least long before small chin decoration beards were fashionable.

"Hello" he said "Dead on time as ever! How are you?"

"Well, thanks" she replied. "And you?"

"Not too bad" he said. There was a slight pause. Bella plunged on ahead. "In your e-mail you said you wanted to see me?" she asked.

"Ah yes". The professor appeared slightly amused at Bella's directness. "Now tell me all about this conference of yours" he said.

"It's an international scientific meeting" Bella started immediately. "It's been organized by the American Society for materno-fetal medicine in association with the European perinatal society. There's a three-day program. Henry Dubrovnic is the keynote speaker. You know he's based in Chelsea and he's done lots of work on fetal malformations in the past. He described the short q syndrome. He's giving his talk on the last day and he's rumoured to have some exciting results."

"And your work?" asked the Professor.

"Well I sent in the abstract of that epidemiological survey I did using the database and the CIS data" Bella explained. "I told you about it at the time. You were concerned that there wouldn't be enough numbers to make a significant study but I got a really positive response from the abstract committee. In fact," she added, blushing slightly "I got a half hour oral presentation on the last day".

The professor's expression did not change but to Bella's mind he exuded a faint air of disapproval. Bella told herself that she was being ridiculous. Why would he disapprove?

"So, show me your presentation" was all he said. "Were you going to show it to me, by the way? You know I like to be kept informed about research projects".

Bella squirmed slightly in her seat. "Of course I was going to show it to you, but I only just got the results of the analysis back myself. Steve Parris helped me with it which was terribly nice of him but he's so busy…" Bella got out her laptop and set it up. There was the usual wait while the computer booted up and she found her file and opened it.

"It's not quite finished," she said nervously. The professor only nodded politely and murmured, "Of course, you'll have time to polish it up on the plane, I'm sure. I just want a preview". With no further excuse to delay, Bella opened the slides and started her presentation.

"This is the hospital for women where I work" she began. "It has 350 beds and does about 7000 deliveries a year. Obstetricians at my hospital were first alerted to the rise in MSAS about 5 years ago when the ultrasound department presented an audit demonstrating a 10% increase in unrelated fetal structural abnormalities".

Bella tapped the mouse pad and the slide show advanced. "These figures show that the rate of these diagnoses has continued to increase every year since that time. The rate of the increase appears to be slowing but the trend has not yet reached a steady state".

"Where did you get those figures from?" interrupted professor Volturi.

"From the ultrasound database directly" Bella replied. "Although I also confirmed them with the head of ultrasound. They've continued to keep up-to-date audit figures themselves. And they've started a weekly meeting about newly diagnosed cases" she added. "Some of them are external referrals of course", she went on "But there's no reason for that to be a confounder because our referral sources are the same as ever. It's not as if we have added a new region or had a major ultrasound service close down or something". The professor did not reply but merely nodded and motioned for her to continue.

"OK, well I have a few slides showing examples of cases. Not too many because everyone will have heard it thousands of times by the last day but I thought I'd just show them some of our pictures so they can get an idea of the quality of our service". She flicked through a few slides, all quite similar, with an ultrasound picture on one side and a baby on the other. "I thought it was important to show that we confirmed the abnormalities as much as possible, either with the baby or at autopsy". Again the professor nodded.

"Then I start with the demographic data. No relation to maternal age, no relation to smoking (how unusual is that!) There are a few positive associations, like previous miscarriages but they're fairly weak, no relation to BMI, folate supplements, vitamin D, thalassaemia.." Bella went on through her lecture, discussing the various factors which had been investigated.

"So in conclusion, the strongest associations were noted for oral contraceptive use, number of previous sexual partners, age at first pregnancy and also a history of chlamydia." Bella paused and frowned slightly. "That chlamydia one might be confounded because it's also associated with age at first pregnancy so the real association might be that one…"

Bella's explanation trailed away and she looked at Professor Volturi expectantly. His expression was guarded and he had his hands steepled together with fingers touching point for point; in Bella's experience this was a sign that he was choosing his words with care.

"These correlations are very rough," he said "And I'm sure you haven't had a great deal of time to review and verify the data. Are you sure you want to present this in such a public open forum? You might be obliged to retract it. Research fraud is a serious issue, you know. People have been forced to resign their positions".

Bella was shocked. "But it's not fraud! I've done this research in good faith using recognized techniques. I freely admit that it's using retrospective data and so I'm relying on whatever was entered into the history. I agree that many records are incomplete but I've kept statistics on those. I know that a research project designed to record the factors of interest would be so much more effective but you'd have to wait years for the outcome!" Bella paused and tried to continue more calmly. "When I first discussed it with you, you didn't raise any objections…"

The professor put his hands in his lap. "Yes, but I didn't know that you would be planning to present your rather wild conclusions in such a public forum. You do tend to be a bit impulsive you know. This conclusion you've drawn about the oral contraceptive pill now, it's hard to justify on a biological basis isn't it? The pill's been around for 50 years at least and yet we've only seen this new syndrome in the last five years or so".

"But what about the new pills" countered Bella quickly. "Two new estrogens and a fourth generation progestin all came out in the last, well, eight years or so. And there was considerable uptake of those pills because they were supposed to have less side effects".

"But these are women having babies so they would be unlikely to use those pills" the Professor protested. "Look I can't stop you, but I'd like to give you some friendly advice. I strongly suggest that you remove the part related to the oral contraceptive pill. Trust me. I'm honestly trying to help".

Bella stared at her Professor in consternation. She was very surprised at his request. He had never spoken to her in this way before.

There was a short silence, which was broken by Professor Volturi with an air of dismissal. "When are you leaving? Tomorrow is it? And I assume you'll be contactable? You'll have your phone with you? Well, I'll be here as usual this week. You know you can always e-mail me or SMS me. I'd be happy to advise you any time you needed it".

Bella got up slowly as it was evident that the interview was over. "Well, thanks" she said. "I appreciate your interest and advice". "I wouldn't want anything to happen to you," said the Professor lightly. He smiled in a saturnine fashion into his beard.

Bella smiled in return, slightly reassured by his manner. She gathered up her things and turned to go. "Thanks again" she said "I'll keep in touch". "Have a safe trip," replied the Professor. As she went out the door she saw that he had gone back to his computer and was already typing busily.

"Raymond knows to call you if he has any problems. Oh and there's one more thing" Bella said. She was speaking on the carphone to another obstetrician who had agreed to cover her practice while she was away. Bella had given her a summary of her current inpatients (there were only two and they were both due to go home the next day following successful normal deliveries) and also any possible problems amongst her other patients. "There's a Mrs Cope who I just saw this afternoon. The fetus has probably got MSAS, it's talipes, ASD and absent left forearm so it seems very likely but it also has some choroid plexus cysts so Louise did an amnio and we'll wait for the result before counseling them. I spoke to them today and they seem to be coping very well but they might want to come and see you to discuss it again". "Poor thing" the other end of the phone replied. "Don't worry, I'm happy to see them. Have you organized a geneticist?" "Yes, they're booked to see Fred after we get the amnio result. Just in case he can come up with some strange syndrome." "Well they're going to the right person aren't they? After you present at this conference you'll be the local expert won't you?" Bella found herself blushing. Her colleague often said flattering things like this and Bella was never sure what she meant by them. "Not really" she said with a slight blush, "It's only a simple epidemiological study". "That's not what I heard" her friend replied. "I heard you've got some astounding new findings. Anyway have a great time and don't worry about your patients, they'll be fine." "Thanks Rosalie" Bella said sincerely, "I really appreciate it".

By the time she had finished the conversation, Bella had pulled into her garage. She sat in the car for a moment thinking about her colleague's comments. How had she heard anything about her results? The only person who had seen them apart from Bella was Steve, her biostatistics lecturer and Prof Volturi. Then again Rosalie was the sort of person who knew everybody and heard everything. As ever, Bella didn't know what to make of her flattering attention but she did know that she was an excellent obstetrician and that patients liked her a lot. Bella got out of the car and resolved not to worry about it any further.

Bella's husband Jacob wasn't home, but that wasn't unusual. Jacob was an orthopaedic surgeon. Just like Bella he had recently completed his training and was starting out in private practice. In order to increase his sources of referrals and supplement their income, Jacob had joined the staff of two public hospitals and was struggling to keep up with the oncall after hours. There were always lots of urgent broken bones to be repaired and they all had to be done after hours so Jacob was usually in all night operating when he was on call. Having only just completed his specialist training, Jacob was very much the junior on the staff. He was usually rostered on with the more inexperienced registrar and in addition to his own on-call, some of his older colleagues would ask him to cover bits of theirs. As well as the public work, Jacob was also keen to make himself available to the private emergency departments so that he could build up his private practice. As a result, since the start of the year, about half the time Jacob didn't get home until Bella was in bed asleep and left just as she was waking up in the morning. It had been a bit of an adjustment at first, but as her husband pointed out, it was just a sacrifice that would have to be made for a few years. Once his reputation was established and the private practice was running more smoothly, he could cut back on the public work.

In one way, Bella didn't mind, as she quite enjoyed her own company and liked the peace and quiet of being on her own in the house. Before they got married she though Jacob had spent so much time in her flat that they practically lived together, but afterwards, she realised that perhaps he hadn't been around as much as she thought. Certainly, after they got married she noticed that Jacob was noisier than she remembered and also alarmingly _there_ all the time. Their three bedroom terrace house was comfortable but not exactly spacious and she found herself retiring to the front room to escape regular bursts of loud sport and terrible music. There had been a few fights while they got used to each other. Bella had found so many unexpected things about getting married became an issue, including stupid things like whether to keep the glad wrap in the drawer or in the cupboard. Now, having got used to him around all the time, and after settling most of their differences, she found herself spending much of her time on her own again. The worst thing about being on her own was how restful she found it and how difficult it was to adjust back to Jacob being around again when she saw him.

She agreed with him that it was a necessary sacrifice but she was also aware that the time was coming when they would have to put in some effort to stay together or they would drift apart. She had been planning to bring up the subject when they next had some time together, but the right occasion had stubbornly refused to present itself.

Bella rang Jacob but received no answer, which probably meant he was scrubbed in theatre. She discovered a neglected text message on her own phone that read "2 NOFS & a washout to do, ETA about 9 if all goes well". Bella knew that meant more like half-past nine and only then if things went well. She made some pumpkin risotto happily enough, thinking about her presentation, her wardrobe and what the weather would be like in San Francisco. She watched the news while she ate her solitary dinner and then got down her suitcase and started packing for the trip.

Bella usually tried to pack far too many things when she went anywhere. She made piles of things on the bed, clothes she'd like to take, clothes she knew she had to take and a pile of somewhere in between. It helped a little that she was packing for the reverse season, so as the weather was becoming colder at home, where she was going it would be getting into Spring and getting warmer. As a result, she could hopefully pack the clothes she was currently wearing. This was always easier she found, than packing for the complete opposite season; trying to remember what she wore last winter when it was a sweltering forty degrees outside was always a struggle. Bella was a complete sucker for those trashy magazine articles which always began "The perfect essential travel wardrobe". Over the years she had tried to assemble such a thing but somehow it never worked out. Her husband always teased her about the amount of clothes she packed for holidays and particularly about the number of items which she packed, but never found occasion to wear. He always boasted of travelling around Europe for three months with only a small shoulder bag which Bella found very annoying, especially when she discovered from their other friends that he had only succeeded in this by wearing the same pair of underwear three days running and by turning his socks inside out and wearing them again. This was, needless to say, before they were going out together.

After a difficult hour well distracted by the problem of whether she could bear to wear her low shoes with her formal suit for the presentation or whether the occasion really demanded formidable heels, Bella finally sat down at her computer. Firstly, out of habit she checked her e-mails. There was one from her ex-biostatistics lecturer discussing some of the finer details of the analysis and apologizing again that it had taken him so long. "There are a number of uncertainties affecting the logistic regression analysis" he wrote "Certainly Prof seemed to think so." That reminded Bella of her own interview with Professor Volturi earlier that day. Again, she brooded about his attitude. Why was he so concerned about her presentation?

Clearing her mind, Bella put in an hour's work on her talk, in particular adding some of Steve's corrections. Jacob rang in between cases, things were going slowly and the Emergency department had added a compound fracture to the list. She should just go to bed and not wait up for him and he would say goodbye in the morning. They gossiped inconsequentially for a little while, filling in the time between cases but then the anaesthetist called him away and she said goodnight. Finally, she e-mailed her presentation to herself as a backup, and rounded up her passport and her ipod as the two essential things to take when travelling.

The next morning, Bella was awakened by Jacob leaning over her and giving her a kiss. It was not quite light and he was fully dressed in his suit. "I have to go" he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I've got a case on early this morning. It was the only time theatre could give me". Bella sighed and struggled to rouse herself. "Whassatime?" she asked, trying to unstick her eyes. "Just after seven. Have a great trip. Be careful. Give me a call from the lounge. I'll try to find a time to skype when you get there". He kissed her again, gently and then left. She lay back on the bed listening to his footsteps retreating and the back door closing. Then she went back to sleep for a while.

Bella arrived at the airport with plenty of time to check-in, look at the duty free and settle comfortably in to a couch in the airline lounge. She set up her laptop using the free wireless and sent Jacob an e-mail. She got a cappuccino and a biscuit, just for the pleasure of using the coffee machine and opened her presentation to go over it once more. On impulse, she sent it to Professor Volturi with a covering note stating that she hoped he approved of her final version.

She had reverted to browsing the local newspaper when she heard her name and looked up. Approaching her was another obstetrician, someone from another hospital and indeed, the rival university. His name was Mike, but for some reason at Uni he had been known as "Froony". Bella found that she still thought of him this way and every time they met she was briefly reminded of the infamous time when he had broken a toilet with a beer bottle at a party.

Despite the fact that they graduated in the same year, Mike had managed to get a place on the training program the year before her. This had given him a slightly condescending air that continued to annoy her in a small way. After completing his fellowship he had taken a job across the other side of town at a rival university hospital and their paths seldom crossed, for which Bella found herself profoundly grateful.

Now she groaned inwardly at the thought of sharing her pleasant travelling solitude. Mike greeted her cheerfully and without particularly asking, put his carry-on luggage down on the armchair opposite hers. "You're presenting at the big international meeting in San Francisco," he announced. Typical, Bella thought and found herself slightly irritated on one minute into the conversation. "You're going too?" she asked, determined to be pleasant. "Yes" he replied with a pleased grin. "Actually I've been asked to give a talk. I'm on the morning of the last day, in the same session as Henry Dubrovnic. He's head of the Research Institute at Chelsea and he's rumoured to have some new results that he's bringing to the meeting…" "Yes" she said through gritted teeth "I know who he is". Trying to change the subject, she asked, "Do you know of anyone else who's coming?" Mike looked taken aback at the sudden change of topic. "Well, Professor Hancock told me she was coming" he began and Bella tried to ignore her annoyance at his obvious name-dropping. After all, she had asked the question. "Oh, good" she replied coolly "She's very good. I'll enjoy hearing her views on the presentations. Anyone else?" Mike launched on a list of all the notable obstetric researchers around Australia and his speculations on whether they might be attending or not based apparently upon his intimate knowledge of their lives. Bella soon found her attention drifting but fortunately Mike only needed the occasional "Oh, yes" to continue.

When their flight was called, Bella was relieved to discover that they were not seated particularly close. It did cross her mind that it was useful to know that there was definitely another medical practitioner on the plane just in case there was one of those announcements "If there is a medical doctor on the plane could they make themselves known to the crew?"

On the plane, Bella settled into her routine for long-haul flights. She was pleased to find that she had her requested seat on the aisle but not quite so pleased when an elderly lady moved into the window seat next to her. The plane was held up taking off, apparently waiting for a late passenger, according to the announcements. A nondescript man in a dark grey suit was ushered through the cabin to a place a few rows behind her and immediately afterward the doors were closed and the plane began to taxi down the runway.

For the first couple of hours, Bella attempted to do some work on her talk, however she found it difficult to concentrate. She realised the cabin crew were starting the meal service when she heard the voice of the attendant repeatedly asking someone to move out of her way. Looking around, she thought she saw the man who had arrived late, standing in the aisleway apparently looking intently up the plane but he sat down immediately. She couldn't be sure it was the same person.

The fourteen-hour flight to Los Angeles passed slowly as usual. Bella watched a number of indifferent movies. After about eight hours she felt a desperate longing to lie down but the seat would only recline a short way. In a series of contortions she managed to doze fitfully for a couple of hours. At one point, Bella was awakened from a light sleep by the passenger to her right who turned his light on for a few minutes in order to find something. Feeling thoroughly awake and very irritable, Bella checked the flight path and discovered that there were only two and a half hours to go. She knew that the cabin crew started waking people at 2 hours. Instead of trying to go back to sleep, she thought she might go to the toilets and try to make herself presentable for the day before everybody had the same idea. She got up and collected her bag from the overhead locker and made her way to the toilets at the front of the cabin. She got herself into the compartment then discovered that her hairbrush was actually in her handbag and still back at her seat. Fortunately there was no-one else around, so she took the risk of leaving her carry-on outside the toilet and went quickly back to her seat to pick up her handbag. When she got to her seat she was startled to see a man crouching on the floor looking under the seat in front of him. Standing in the aisle, she placed her hands on her hips and hissed "Excuse me, that's my seat, what are you doing?"

The man looked up at once, clearly startled. Seeing her, however he appeared to relax. "I dropped my pen around here somewhere as I was walking past" he explained easily. Bella picked up her handbag and after a moment's hesitation also took her laptop for good measure. The man continued to hunt around on the floor. She walked back to the front of the cabin. When she got to the toilets, she half turned back to see that the man had stood up and appeared to be dusting off his hands. She told herself that no-one steals things on aeroplanes because they would be caught too easily but she still checked that her computer seemed intact. Mechanically she went through her routine bag check; wallet with credit cards, passport, ipod, memory stick.

When she got back to her seat, the flight crew had switched on the lights and were handing out hot towels. In the general slow, overheated bustle, she took the opportunity to ask the elderly lady next to her if she had noticed the man crawling around her seat during the night. However when the woman replied, "What was that dear?" and held her hand behind her ear, Bella thought the better of it and shook her head "Nothing" she said "Don't worry" but she had to repeat it twice more before she was understood.

As usual, Bella staggered off the plane feeling dry, greasy and faintly nauseated. She stumbled through passport control, had trouble producing a decent fingerprint and answered the rather surly questions about the purpose of her trip and whether she would be leaving again, put to her by the laconic LA customs official. She caught glimpses of Mike in the customs queue but managed to get away with giving him only a brief smile and a "Good morning". Nobody really feels like talking at this point in the trip she told herself. With a faint lurch of anxiety and a mental prayer that her suitcase really had been checked through to San Francisco and was not even now either languishing on a baggage collection belt or on its way to Alaska, she found the correct bus to take her to the American airlines terminal. The sun was coming up quite strongly and she was aware of the LA haze beginning to spread across the sky. The LA airport streetscape was very familiar from lots of previous trips, the 70's brown of the airport, the peculiar pale American roads and the large slightly dilapidated taxis. The airport was even noisier than most in Bella's opinion, not just plane noises but loud traffic noises and often even louder people noises. It was the first thing you always noticed about Americans she mused, their loudness. Bella's thoughts went on a path down a well-travelled track about how Americans looked different to Australians. Casual dress, she thought was the key. Lots of track suits and t-shirts, all in bright colours, lots of sneakers. Looking at the people coming off her plane you could tell the Australians immediately. Paler faces in general, less strong makeup on the women, less formal hairdos, less hairspray. Grey and yellow crooked teeth, very different to the shiny straight white American ones. A sort of formality to their dress, even if they were wearing jeans, they were likely to be wearing leather shoes and as the plane was from Melbourne, most people were wearing black. Black was the safe choice at home if you didn't want to stand out in the crowd but it didn't work nearly as well in the US, as she had found in the past.

Americans were also generally very loud in Bella's opinion. Even just walking down the street by themselves, they thought nothing apparently odd in singing aloud. Bella had spent quite some time in the US over the years and she still found Americans a bit puzzling. She often said that it was disorienting being in the States for any length of time. At first the people seem normal, a little loud perhaps, but generally nice and friendly and then suddenly they do something that would make her feel very alien indeed, like the time she was in a bar in Philadelphia and the whole bar spontaneously started singing the "Stars and Stripes" at the announcement of a minor military victory on the television news. Bella had spent enough time in the US to know that she was never really at ease there. She never really trusted the apparent friendliness of the people; how many times had she been warned by close American acquaintances of the various scams and tricksters waiting to pounce on the unwary, not to mention the violence, gangs, organized crime or police, it was all the same she had been told. Keep your hand on your wallet and your eye on their gun and trust nobody. Even the beggars were louder in the US than elsewhere coming up to her to inform her that God loved her, leaving her bewildered as to why that was supposed to make her part with some hard-earned coins. The beggars were a painful sight in what was reputed to be the most affluent country in the world, in Bella's opinion. Especially when they were likely to be plying their trade metres from limousines containing the fabulously wealthy.

The other thing Bella found odd about Americans was the zeal with which they pursued even the most menial of tasks. The person parking the car, or serving the water all genuinely seemed to care about whether they had done a good job of it. At home, people doing more menial jobs seemed all too aware of the nature of their work. I'm doing this rubbish job, they seemed to say ,but don't expect me to enjoy it. People in the US though, genuinely seemed to enjoy their incredibly low-paid wage slavery, something which puzzled Bella exceedingly.

Standing in the airport security line, Bella was engrossed in her usual thoughts about Americans when suddenly someone gripped her by the shoulders from behind and an American voice said "Don't move!" loudly in her ear.

Tired as she was, Bella felt the sickening sensation of startling and her heart pounded in her chest. "Bells!" the unknown party called out and the hands that had been gripping her arms momentarily released their hold as the man moved around into her swimming field of vision. "It's great to see you! What are you doing here?"

As soon as she heard the pet name Bella recognized her attacker at once. "Edward" she said, "You scared the hell out of me. I'm just off the plane from Melbourne, I've had no sleep. Don't ever do that again." Her initial relief now had a noticeable edge of irritation to it.

The cause of her fright was 6 foot 2 inches tall with glasses and mass of artfully untidy bronze hair. He had a spare sort of figure and was slightly stooped, not a surprising consequence of being taller than 90% of the population. He towered over the relatively petite Bella by about 25 centimetres. His skin was very fair giving his cheeks and forehead a bluish tinge. He was dressed in a casual but preppy way in a nondescript navy blue shirt and dark jeans. "Nice to see you too" he said, smiling. She noticed that he continued to hold her lightly around the tops her arms. "Is that any way to be? We've hardly seen each other since you dumped me years ago!"

Edward Masen was Bella's ex-boyfriend, who she sometimes referred to as her ex-fiancé. When she thought about it, she couldn't remember him actually asking her to marry him, but she certainly remembered him suggesting reception places, honeymoon ideas and even window shopping for wedding rings. Given all of this, she had to assume that they had been engaged at the time. They met when they were both at University. Edward was doing Science rather than medicine. She suspected that he had actually started with the idea of being pre-med as they call it in the US but he vehemently denied that he had any intention of doing so. Edward had spent a few years in Melbourne as a child when his father was transferred as part of his job working for some giant American multinational. He had made some friends from school who he still kept up with. By the time his parents decided to move back to Australia some years later, Edward was already at college. He came out to spend what he called his 'vacations' with his family. It was during one of these holidays that they met.

As a boyfriend, Bella found Edward a refreshing change from the local examples. Edward was an early prototype of the sensitive new age guy. He loved going shopping with her, including standing around for hours while she tried things on and giving detailed but adoring critiques of various outfits ("You still look gorgeous in that one, but I like the other one better"). He was both sentimental and affectionate. He loved dancing. He made dozens of mixes for her. Bella had never been out with anyone like him.

Unlike her other boyfriends, he made no attempt to compete with her. He was proud of her academic achievements and he freely admitted that he couldn't match them. He was very easy company. He used to joke about her having to be the breadwinner and how much he would enjoy being a kept man. He sang her the XTC song "Mayor of Simpleton".

They had occasional fights over stupid things like matters of taste. Bella was constantly making scathing comments about his Americanisms all of which he took in good part, merely remarking that "You say tomayto and I say tomahto" with a grin. His sunny good nature made it impossible for her to stay upset with him for long.

When he returned to the US to go back to college at the end of his holiday, they fell into a long distance relationship without thinking much about the consequences. Over the next two years, they saw each other during the holidays. He came to Melbourne for the three months of his summer holidays and two weeks at Christmas and she went to the US for at least six weeks of her summer break. In that way they managed to see each other for five months out of the year. She wasn't unhappy with the situation. They had spectacularly romantic reunions and tearful tragic partings, drippingly sentimental phone conversations and they sent each other cards and letters, or at least she sent him letters and he made her long rambling recordings because he said he found writing difficult. Occasionally they saved enough for a phone call. It all kept the romance going and she found that she liked it.

At the end of his Bachelor degree he organized to spend an honours year in Melbourne although he didn't think it would do much for his career. They spent many happy hours talking and planning for it and for the first six months they were blissful but then she found out that he was applying for Doctor of Philosophy opportunities in the US. He started talking about the opportunities for her career in the US. He bought her a directory of all the different medical schools. He wrote to various places asking about their policies on transfers. It was the beginning of a paralyzing slow end for the relationship. Neither one wished to admit that they had reached a point about which they couldn't compromise but it was becoming increasingly obvious that he wanted to live in the US and she didn't. At the end of the year he moved to Texas to start on his doctoral studies. The night before he left, they stayed up all night trying to reach a conclusion. Bella found it hard to remember the details of the discussion later, she was horribly tired, she'd been crying for hours and she thinks they left it at saying that they still loved each other and if they were ever living in the same continent again they would get back together. Even after her marriage, they still kept in contact although by now, she hadn't had an e-mail from him for months. She had congratulated him on his PhD, commiserated with him on the difficulties of finding a post-doctoral position when he was out of work for a few months, then congratulated him again on starting work in the prestigious Daresby laboratory. She hadn't actually seen him since that last night before he went back to the US.

Now she regarded him with a mixture of affection and exasperation. A few years ago he had taken to referring to their break up as her "dumping" him and she wondered why he made the opportunity to throw it in her face like that. Was he trying to be hurtful? They both knew that the comment was far from the truth. "We haven't seen each other since you decided you'd rather live on the other side of the world from me" she countered. "But of course it's nice to see you. I just wish it had been a bit less of a shock".

It was awkward; he still had his hands lightly on her arms and she wasn't sure what he wanted her to do. The easiest thing was to stand on tiptoe and give him a hug, but after a brief second she reflected that she had been travelling for about eighteen hours, she felt filthy and exhausted and she dropped her arms a little abruptly, before he could kiss her. She stood back and slid into conversation a little too desperately. "So of all the security lines in all the airports in the world, what brings you to mine?" she asked not even attempting a real Humphrey Bogart impersonation.

"I'm going through to San Francisco" he replied promptly "I've got a poster to present at a scientific meeting". "Not the conference on the MSAS crisis" she exclaimed. His smile widened a little and he nodded and said "Yep, you too?" "Yes!" she said, pleased. "Are you on the same flight? What a coincidence! Where are you staying?"

They swapped travel details. He was staying at a recommended conference hotel but a different one to hers, somewhat less expensive and a few blocks away. He had also arranged to share a room with another scientist he knew from his old university. His poster session was on the first day. He hadn't seen the latest version of the scientific program and hadn't realised that she was speaking. "What's your poster about?" she asked, frowning. "I thought you were working in immunology?" He appeared gratified that she remembered his area of scientific interest, but clearly felt he needed to set her straight. "I started in immunology but that was ages ago. I've moved into different areas. I've done some work on cytokines and on nuclear receptors. I was part of the group that first described the bell-like receptors," he added with a virtuous air of resisting the temptation to boast. "We reckon that the BLR pathway is the explanation for nearly everything, so we did some BLR work on cultured placentas from MSAS affected pregnancies. It's not really my work but I was next up for a sponsored trip and I really like San Francisco, so here I am. Which is pretty lucky for you" he added teasingly.

They finally made it through the security process which was one of the more involved ones including removing their shoes and checking their bags for traces of explosive material. By the end, Bella was feeling completely wrung out so she suggested a rest and a coffee. She looked for an ATM but Edward insisted on buying, so she gratefully sank into a chair at the Starbucks on the other side of the security area. She sat at the table and wondered at the coincidence that had brought Edward to this same conference. She also wondered if he was going out with anyone. The thought brought a guilty "So what if he is?" reflex response. Adding to her confusion, her phone made the whizzing noise that accompanied the arrival of a text message from her husband. She busied herself with answering that all had gone well through immigration and that she was now getting coffee. It was four o'clock in the morning but he couldn't sleep and had seen her message from when she arrived. He was glad that she had got there safely. Bella texted him that she was fine, having a cup of coffee and waiting for the next flight and that he was to go back to sleep all in less than 30 characters. She hesitated briefly over whether to mention Edward but immediately decided that it was unnecessary. Jacob had never met Edward. He wouldn't be interested, she told herself.

They spent the wait for the flight catching up. She asked where he was living in Texas, about work, work colleagues, family and holidays. She asked about everything except relationships and as time went on she began to be conscious of avoiding the topic. She wondered if he noticed. Edward answered her questions easily but didn't ask so many about her. He did ask briefly after her husband but then quickly let the subject drop. She was happy not to talk about anything too seriously as the coffee was definitely starting to wear off and she began to get that feeling of vague unreality that accompanies the combination of lack of sleep and disturbance of the circadian rhythm known as jet lag.

They were seated separately on the plane, however Edward asked politely for the man next to her to swap seats. She wasn't sure if this was a good idea as she had really looked forward to a rest on the flight but she didn't have the heart to say so. To her surprise however, he didn't ask her any more questions or make any efforts at conversation. Instead he told her to lean back and have a rest because she was looking tired. Gratefully, she did as he suggested, lolling her head against the seat back and staring out onto the tarmac at the blue sky tinged with the grey of LA haze. The last thing she was conscious of was the motion of the plane taking off.


	2. Chapter 2

"Bells?" asked a gentle voice. "Bells, wake up we're about to land". Bella tried to force her eyes open. She discovered that she was resting her head on Edward's shoulder and pulled herself upright abruptly, causing a shooting pain in her head "Oh!" she groaned as bright stars made their way across her vision. The stars cleared and showed her Edward looking at her with a small smile and a general expression of mild concern. "Wow" she said ruefully, "I really fell asleep there. Sorry about that. Did I hurt your shoulder?" "My shoulder's fine" he said reassuringly "And you looked like you really needed the sleep! You didn't drool much," he added comfortingly and she groaned again at the thought of drooling like an old woman with dementia on the shoulder of her ex-boyfriend.

They got off the plane and collected luggage including the long plastic case holding Edward's poster. The poster cases were a dead giveaway for people who must have been attending at least some conference, if not the same meeting as they were. Edward recognized someone with whom he exchanged nods. As they walked away from the baggage carousel, a man neatly dressed in a plain white shirt and grey trousers and wearing sunglasses came hurrying towards them. He was carrying a large white sign with "Dr B Swan" written neatly in Black texta. "Dr Swan?" he asked. "Are you Dr Swan by any chance?" "Yes" Bella replied, "Yes that's me" she shot a quick glance at Edward for reassurance. "Dr Swan. I've been instructed to pick you up and take you to your hotel. The limousine is just outside. Can I take your luggage?"

Bella stopped and frowned. "I wasn't expecting anyone to pick me up," she said doubtfully. "Paid for by Sprague and Dowley, chief sponsors of the MSAS conference," the driver explained. Bella glanced again at Edward who appeared cheerful enough. "Well, it's nice to be wanted" he said. "I'll see you at the welcome reception tonight. That's if you're thinking of going?"

"Wait a sec" Bella turned back to the driver "Can you take my friend too?" she asked. "He's presenting at the conference as well."

The drivers face clouded. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's against the rules. I was told to collect Dr Swan only". "Are you picking up anyone else?" asked Bella. The driver hesitated briefly and shook his head. "Well then" said Bella reasonably, "You said it was a limousine. You must have room for two of us". She looked at Edward for confirmation once more but he was watching the driver's reaction. "No" said the driver again "I just can't do that".

Bella was tired and irritable and this sort of unreasoning obedience annoyed her considerably. "No thanks" she snapped. "If you can't take my colleague as well, I won't go. You can tell them you picked me up if like though. Come on Edward" she said and reached for the handle of her suitcase, which the driver was still clutching.

"I can't do that," he protested. He continued to hang on to her suitcase. Bella put her hand on the handle as well and attempted it to wrench it away from him. "Give me that!" she cried, her voice rising. They were starting to attract the attention of other people in the busy San Francisco airport terminal. The driver let go of her suitcase and obviously decided to try another approach. "Look" he began "I'm told to pick up Dr Swan. It's company policy that we only take the passengers we've been asked to take. We don't want anyone complaining afterwards. Also sometimes clients want to meet the passenger at the other end or they want to give you some promotional material during the ride or something. I don't usually know until I call in to say I've picked up the passenger. That's why I can't just say I've picked you up because they might have some special instructions for me. But if I don't pick you up I lose my bonus. I won't get paid. I'm sure your friend won't mind taking his own cab". He looked at Edward who shrugged his shoulders.

Bella made up her mind quickly. "Look" she said. "I'm sorry about your bonus but I don't owe this company of yours anything. No-one's paying me to come to the conference. And if they do want to talk to me or give me promotional stuff I'm in no condition to pay any attention or make any sense. I'd rather just get my own way there. Sorry." She turned to Edward. "Come on" she said. "Let's go" and she led the way without looking back behind her.

Edward followed hastily. "That was nice of you," he said "but honestly I didn't mind. I would have been happy enough to make my own way there". Bella was a little contrite in reply. "I know" she said "And I feel really sorry for that guy but the last thing I want at the moment is to be nice to drug reps or something like that. And I certainly don't want to hear any promotional crap. I'm tired, I'm strung out, I feel filthy and I just want a hot shower and to go to bed for a bit". Edward smiled. "You just want to borrow my shoulder again in the taxi" he boasted. "Admit it. That was the motivation". Bella just smiled and shook her head. Privately, she found herself wondering if her ex-boyfriend was flirting with her.


	3. Chapter 3

After a long shower, some room service and four hours of fitful sleep, Bella woke to the unfamiliar sound of people talking in the hotel corridor as they passed her door. Still feeling sluggish, she rolled over to pick up her phone and check the time. The last thing she had done before falling asleep was to put her phone into silent mode and now she saw that while she slept she had received two phone calls from blocked numbers, which probably meant the hospital and a text message from her husband asking if she got to the hotel safely and suggesting a possible skype time for the next day. She took her time replying, noting that he had sent the message over three hours earlier and that it was now midmorning at home and he was probably in the middle of an operation. The time difference with Los Angeles was not ideal for Skype contact because the best time was really her lunchtime, which corresponded with early morning at home. Bella would have to come back to the hotel from the conference during the lunch break unless she took her computer with her. Most scientific meetings had a public area of wireless internet access available for the use of overseas delegates particularly, although that would mean talking in a relatively public place. Bella mentally shrugged and relegated the problem to the back of her mind. It would work out. In any case, Jacob was not particularly needy and would understand if he didn't hear from her for a day.

It was about 4 in the afternoon and Bella sat up slowly. She had three hours to get ready for the welcome reception. She took out her computer to review her talk material again but after only a few minutes she found it difficult to concentrate and she closed her computer again. She turned on the television. The welcome screen indicated that there was a message for her. She checked the message and found that it was from Edward, giving his hotel name and room number as well as his phone and suggesting that he stop by to pick her up for the Welcome reception. Bella frowned slightly wondering again if Edward was being just a little too friendly, but he did know how much she hated the idea of going to these receptions alone. She switched over to television and flipped through the channels until she found BBC world. She got up to go to the bathroom and as she did, she noticed a flat white envelope on the carpet near the door. It had obviously been pushed underneath the door while she slept.

Bella bent to pick up the piece of paper. The envelope contained a "with compliments" paper with the Sprague and Dowley logo. A handwritten note read "Sorry to have missed you earlier. Hoping to catch up this evening". Underneath was scrawled an incomprehensible signature.

Bella threw the piece of paper on the nearby desk and sat down heavily in the chair next to it. Someone really wanted to talk to her, she thought, but was unable to come up with a satisfactory reason why that might be the case. She picked up the paper again and considered it, turning it over and around in case she missed something.

Sprague and Dowley were a large pharmaceutical firm. They were a fairly recent addition to the list of big multinational pharmaceuticals. A small biotechnology firm had made a successful development of a new needle-free injection technology. The income from this success had enabled them to swallow up a few smaller concerns, each with a number of useful patents in niche markets which the larger company had been able to exploit. The development of a new anti-viral and new forms of hormone based contraceptives had been the major successes. There were rumours that some of the buy-outs were not quite legal and the CEO at one point had sacked the original board of directors. Bella knew little about them, although every obstetrician and gynaecologist had been targeted by their relentless marketing of their new hormone formulations over the last few years. Like many doctors, Bella was happy to take a few free handouts but liked to keep her own clinical judgment free of any other obligations. This, at least is what she told herself, but she had seen evidence that the drug companies freebies and their advertising worked, even on doctors who thought themselves completely impartial.

Looking at the paper again, Bella was at a loss as to what benefit she could be to a giant company such as Sprague and Dowley. Perhaps they wanted her to talk about one of their products somewhere, she thought. No doubt she would find out that evening. She wasn't looking forward to the prospect of making small talk to drug reps. Perhaps she would be able to use Edward as an excuse to get away. Without really noticing, she made up her mind that she would call him and meet up with him somewhere before the reception.

As it turned out, Bella didn't have to worry about whether her continuing close association with Edward was strictly appropriate. When he arrived at her hotel to meet her, he was accompanied by another scientist. The two of them were sharing a twin room to cut down on costs. They were also collecting another colleague staying at Bella's hotel so all four of them would go to the reception together. Bella had worried slightly about Edward coming up to her room but in the circumstances he merely called from the lobby. She gave her hair a last brush, scooped up her handbag and did a quick check of the contents, wallet, memory stick, ipod all in their places. She hesitated over her computer. Carrying it around would be a nuisance, but on the other hand she might be able to get some free internet access instead of paying the exorbitant hotel rates, which on investigation, turned out to be an extraordinary $10 per hour. At the last minute, she threw it over her shoulder and raced out the door.

The hotel where the welcome reception was being held was a few blocks north of her hotel, past Union Square. Bella happily walked along with the others, inwardly pleased that it was San Francisco, one of the few places she had found in the US where it was actually possible to walk from place to place. The three scientists spent the walk in chatting inconsequentially. She found herself walking naturally enough next to Edward, but apart from asking whether she had got any decent sleep, he mostly joined in the conversation with the others. She forgot to mention the handwritten note.

At the reception hotel, although it was not the venue for the conference, temporary registration booths had been set up outside the function room. The collections were alphabetized and once again Edward and Bella were together as their names began with letters close together in the alphabet. The others joined their respective areas.

Bella gave her name and received her conference bag. Bags for medical conferences were a difficult task for the organizers. A conference always seemed to be obliged to supply a bag and the type depended on the latest trends and how much sponsorship money was available. Over the years, Bella had collected everything from a small computer bag (which was from an Australian conference and which she still used because of its compact size) to a large hiking style back pack, including everything in between such as what appeared to be grocery bags, smaller backpacks, satchels and even, in one case, something resembling a beach bag. Between them, she and Jacob had a whole cupboard full. The bag for this conference was fairly minimalist and of the satchel variety, with a flap over the front and a strap for slinging over one shoulder. Grimacing, Bella threw it over her shoulder with her other bags. She was beginning to regret bringing her computer.

Everyone was putting on the badges guaranteeing them entry to the Reception. It was still early and there were only a few huddled groups standing around the vast room circled by waiting staff carrying trays of food. Looking around the room, Bella guessed that most of the guests were visiting from elsewhere; there were many with the telltale dark-ringed eyes and pale complexions of recent long-haul air travel. A few stood around the edges of the room holding drinks and leaning on tables, attempting to look occupied while they searched for a familiar face. Bella was glad to have Edward who was soon pounced on by a pudgy-faced balding middle-aged scientist type chatting away enthusiastically about gossip from the latest round of grant results.

Bella looked through the final program which had been included in her conference bag. Tomorrow's program looked excellent, including an intriguing plenary by the famous English scientist Richard Larkins with the alarming title "The End of Humanity?" The afternoon session was taken up by talks on genetics and epigenetics; looking at the abstracts, she noted that investigators were pursuing a variety of different SNP and gene deletions. The epigenetic abstracts all seemed to be reporting very early work. The following day's program seemed a bit of a disappointment, with sessions given over to nutrition, social sciences, psychology and comparative biology. Edward and his acquaintance, who he introduced as Jasper, during a lull in their conversation looked over her shoulder at the program and added their comments. Both agreed that Day 2 appeared to be significantly less interesting than Day 1. "Day of the Freaks" commented Edward. "Equal time for the nutcase fringe" was his colleague's summation. All of them agreed that the standout talk of the meeting was going to be the plenary on the last day, after the morning tea break. Bella's talk was in the first morning session and she was faintly annoyed to see that the irritating Mike was presenting in the same session as her own, with his, in her opinion, extremely speculative work on free fetal mRNA.

More people had been crowding into the auditorium and she was aware of their group moving almost imperceptibly further into the room as more and more people entered. Across one side of the room, starting nearest the door were a series of tables with drug information displays and promotional material on them proudly bearing the banner of Sprague and Dowley. Behind the tables were a group of four or five reps, loitering next to their particular display and occasionally chatting to one another or to an unwary conference delegate whenever one ventured close enough to engage in conversation. The delegates themselves were concentrated over the other side of the room. None of the attendees wanted to be rude and all of them would separately acknowledge that without the drug companies such meetings would not be possible, but there is no disguising that the reps were there to sell something and the resulting conversations with clinicians were always slightly awkward.

The president of the SMFM now cleared his throat loudly over the microphone. The amplified coughing worked, gaining the alarmed attention of the room immediately. Smoothly, the president, a well-known clinical researcher, head of institute and NIH figure welcomed the delegates to the meeting. With practiced ease, he mentioned his anticipation to hear the various speakers, applauded all who had submitted work for consideration and acknowledged the sponsors. Following his introduction the chief sponsor, some male of corporate appearance from Sprague and Dowley took the microphone. His talk was not greeted quite so enthusiastically however and he misjudged the length of his talk by the few crucial minutes that it took for the audience to move through polite boredom into a slightly sulky atmosphere. At the end of his speech, the corporate manager type ordered out the reps who were lined up next to the promotional tables. During the scattered applause they moved determinedly into the crowd.

Bella was relieved the talks were finished. She was disappointed not to find any wireless internet access and was starting to feel tired again. Her mood wasn't helped by the effort required to balance her computer, conference bag and handbag as well as juggle difficult finger food items and the sticks and napkin detritus which is the inevitable result. Desperately thirsty, she entrusted her belongings to Edward and set off for the drinks waiter who she had refused on a number of occasions because she knew that trying to balance a glass at the same time was going to be impossible. She promised to reward the others, who had no such problems, with refills and wandered away through the crowd.

Near the drinks table she was startled to hear her name called. She turned around and was pleased to find an obstetrician who she knew from Adelaide coming towards her, towing a man whose badge clearly identified him as one of the Sprague and Dowley drug reps. The obstetrician, whose name was Angela greeted her with characteristic warmth but also a measure of relief which Bella ascribed to her release from one-on-one sales talk. Bella felt a degree of sympathy for this, after all, everyone had to share the duties as well as the food. The S&D man followed Angela closely and held out his hand to introduce himself in a determined manner. Resigning herself to a few wasted minutes, Bella took his hand and introduced herself. To her surprise, on hearing her name, the S&D rep completely failed to respond with his own. Instead, he looked closely at her badge and merely said, "Bella Swan? A pleasure to meet you. I hope you enjoy the presentations. Excuse me" then without any further word, he turned around and walked away.

"Completely brilliant!" cheered Angela after he had gone. "Have you got drug rep repellant on or something? Can I get some? He's been hanging around me for what felt like ages and there's only so many wonderful things you can say about Ovival! Thank God he's gone!" Bella was equally startled. She watched after the man to see where he went but he had disappeared completely in the crowd. "Perhaps he was as desperate to get away as you were," she suggested. "It must be pretty crap pinning people down and hassling them". They fell into conversation about work and gossip over people they knew. After only a few minutes however another man presented himself by Bella's elbow and interrupted their conversation. "Dr Swan?" Clearly here was another S&D rep. "Can I have a few moments of your time please?" Inwardly Bella sighed but couldn't think of an excuse. "Sure" she said preparing herself for an onslaught of sales pitch. Surprisingly, the rep didn't say anything, but merely motioned for her to accompany him. "If you wouldn't mind" he said smilingly. "See you tomorrow" she said dismally to Angela who gave her a moue of sympathy. Then she followed the rep through the crowd.


	4. Chapter 4

To her surprise he led her out of the function room. "Where are we going?" she asked. "Just to the Sunset room" he replied, which to Bella's mind, did not explain very much. She saw that she wasn't going to get any more information so she asked him nothing more, but merely followed him across the anteroom and down some stairs to a new lobby with series of doors leading to smaller meeting rooms. One of the doors was standing open with a suited man standing next to it. He looked incongruously like a bouncer, but he was also wearing a suit and the S&D rep badge.

Her guide led her into the room and then exited quickly behind her, closing the door. Inside the room was relatively dark illuminated only by the side downlights. A middle aged man with dark hair wearing a suit sat at the head of a small table, watching her.

"Dr Swan? I am MD for communications at S&D. Thank you for coming to see me."

Bella pursed her lips to restrain herself from commenting either that she thought MD was a medical degree or that she didn't have much choice in the matter of coming to see him. She waited to see how he would continue.

"You are of course, one of our key speakers for the final day of the program" he said unctuously. "And I would really appreciate a preview of your presentation. Did you bring your computer with you? Do you have a version of your talk available?"

Bella thought the "key speakers" comment a piece of unbelievably obvious empty flattery but couldn't see any reason to refuse. "I did bring my computer, but I don't have it with me. Do you have one?" she asked, scrabbling around in her bag for the flash drive. The S&D communications man gave an artificial smile and opened a flat black laptop sitting next to him. The screen sprang to life. Bella took a seat next to it and turned it so that the screen could be seen by both of them. She connected the USB stick, waited for the software to load and found her file in silence. She took him through her powerpoint presentation by presenting a brief summary of each slide but not really giving the full talk. The S&D man appeared to be watching intently all the way through the first half, although Bella had the impression that he wasn't really listening to her.

She reached the end of her talk, although she gabbled through the last couple of slides feeling overwhelmingly that he was completely uninterested. Then she sat back and waited for a response. When it came, it definitely was not what she was expecting.

"Dr Swan" said the man "Are you aware how much media interest there has been in this conference?" Taken aback, Bella shook her head. "Enormous amounts" the man pronounced, his dark eyes pinned to her face. "Every major media group has a representative here. Some of them have been running lead-up stories on patients with MSAS for weeks. Interest in the story is very high."

Bella nodded slowly. The man took a breath and held it, perhaps for emphasis. He leaned forward slightly. "What do you think they will make of your talk?'

Bella was completely and honestly surprised. "Not too much" she said. "There's no startling conclusions, just some epidemiological risks. No causative mechanisms. I make a big effort to point out that the associations could be just chance or confounded by some other underlying factor –". "Do you really think that the media pays any attention to that?" her interlocutor cut in scathingly. "Do you know what I think will happen? Banner headlines saying New Pill Causes Fetal Damage. Or worse. What do you think?"

Bella was honestly outraged. "I think that's ridiculous, but the media is always looking to scare people. It will be one small mention on page 10 and that will be all. No-one will even remember it the next day".

Again the S&D man broke in impatiently. "You cannot be that naïve. You know that they would love to create a scare campaign around the new pills. And you must know how sensitive the market is to these scare campaigns. Once a drug gets some bad press, especially for something as consumer driven as the oral contraceptive pill, sales can drop spectacularly. Word of mouth amongst patients is particularly hard to counter. A vague bad reputation is the end for a medication sometimes. And a rumour of fetal damage is particularly effective".

"Are you saying that I'm doing this deliberately or something?" asked Bella, bewildered. "No, of course not" was the reply "But don't you see that it doesn't matter? Once the damage has been done it will be impossible to claw back".

After a moment's silence Bella asked in a small voice "What do you want?"

"Don't present the data relating to the OCP," the man said immediately. "You're free to present the rest of it of course. We wouldn't want a gap in the program if we could help it".

Bella was speechless. "I can't do that," she said eventually. "Not necessarily out of conviction, although I think research freedom is an important basic right. But because it is all too ridiculous. I can't believe this is happening! I can't believe you would care about my stupid study. Do you go and threaten everyone who does any research involving contraception?"

"Of course not" snapped her antagonist. "But you don't appreciate that this is not the usual sort of conference. The media has made this bigger than anything. Every presentation will be watched." His voice softened slightly. "Ovial and nullivial are our biggest selling products. Without the income from those products our other developments will not be able to continue. Some of our work could produce cures for malaria, tuberculosis…"

"Oh spare me," grimaced Bella. "The whole means justifies the end thing has been definitely exploded in the movies, if not by the philosophers. There's no money in tuberculosis treatments. You just mean you're worried about your profits."

The S&D corporate man looked unimpressed. ""I urge you to think very carefully about this Dr Swan" he said, his voice soft, but with an edge of menace. His face remained almost expressionless. "A small change to your presentation. As you say, there could be all sorts of reasons for your finding, including chance, but its consequences could be terrible".

There was a silence during which Bella became aware that the sound of voices outside the door had been getting steadily louder over the last five minutes. She jumped as a high trilling noise interrupted the tableau. The corporate spokesperson reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.

"Yes?" he said into it. After a brief communication he replied "OK, let him in". He put the phone down. "Your friend is looking for you. You are welcome to leave. But do think over what I have said. We'll be in contact". As she reached toward the laptop he put out a hand to stop her. "You can leave the memory stick with me. I'll be happy to return it to you once you make the right decision".

"But that's got all sorts of things on it!" she protested. "And how am I to alter my presentation if I don't have it?" she asked.

The man slid his card across the table. "Here is how to contact me…when you change your mind. We'll get it to you straight away. It will be quite safe with me".

Resigned, Bella got up from the table and went to the door. Outside she found Edward still clutching her laptop and the two conference bags confronting two large men in suits. He was obviously looking for her. His face cleared as she came through the door. "Bella!" he said. "There you are! I was looking everywhere for you. Someone said they thought they saw you down this way but these creeps wouldn't let me in…"

While he was telling her all this, Bella took his arm and pushed him towards the stairs and back towards the main reception. Upstairs, there were sounds of people taking leave, making arrangements to meet the next day or go on to dinner. When they reached the foyer, the crowd in the room had thinned considerably. Bella was relieved that Edward wouldn't expect her to go back in, as, at that exact moment, she never wanted to see another S&D logo again.

"Let's go," she said to Edward in an undertone. "Sure" he said easily and she was grateful one more time for his generally sunny temperament. "What was all that about?" he asked as they walked out into the main foyer and out the hotel doors. He was still carrying her computer and she let him. It had crossed her mind that if they were going to take her memory stick, they would certainly take her computer. Maybe if she let Edward carry it they would think it was his.

"Hang on, let's get some coffee or something," she said "And I'll tell you the whole story. It's so weird". They walked a few minutes in the general direction of her hotel. Damp sea air was rolling in pushed by a stiff breeze and she shivered repeatedly and clutched her cardigan around her. Edward looked at her with concern. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You look all shaky or something. Actually you are shaking!" She was actually shivering with a mixture of cold and fright. She didn't resist when he gave her a brief hug. "Let's get to the hotel," she said between teeth clenched together to keep them from chattering. They set off at a faster pace, jumping over gutters and crossing roads, staying away from passersby and beggars.

Next door to her hotel was a Starbucks. Looking in as they drew level, Bella noted that it was quite empty this late on a cool Wednesday night. "Let's have a cup of coffee," she suggested. They went in and Bella tried to work out whether she actually wanted anything in the menu. After screwing up her nose at the concept of 'white chocolate mocha' having anything to do with coffee, she recognized the expression café latte and ordered one. Feeling paranoid but at the same time idiotic, she gave them her middle name, Marie, and got a very peculiar look from Edward.

They sat down at a booth in the far corner, and Bella put her hands around her warm cup in gratitude. At least the shivering seemed to have stopped. She took a sip and looked up from her drink to find Edward watching her with a faintly bemused expression and a slight smile. "Marie?" he queried. "My middle name" she said reasonably. "You knew that didn't you?" His smile grew wider in reminiscence. "As a matter of fact I did. But why are we using it now? Protesting against Starbucks fake-friendliness or something? What happened?" he asked, with considerable emphasis.

Bella hesitated. It all sounded so unbelievable, even to her, so she began "OK you're not going to believe this, it's utterly ridiculous but I was ushered away to meet with some Captain creep corporate type from Sprague and Dowley in that little meeting room I came out of. He asked me to show him my presentation. Well, I didn't have much choice so, I sort of took him through my talk. One of my findings was an increased OR with use of the OCP in the five years before the pregnancy. It's pretty controversial that one, obviously. The Sprague and Dowley guy didn't like it because as he pointed out, that sort of targets their new hormone compounds which are the latest on the market and all released in the last 10 years. They're afraid of negative publicity it would seem. So he asked me, not too subtly, to withhold my results in regard to the OCP. I couldn't believe it. I said no, just because it seemed so ludicrous and then he kind of threatened me".

Edward stiffened. "Threatened you? What like threatened to beat you up or something?" She shook her head "No, nothing so obvious' she said. "In fact, now that I think about it, he didn't actually make any threats at all. He just asked me not show the OCP data and warned me to think very carefully about the consequences… but it was the way he said it. He went into a whole rant about how it would destroy their profits and then they wouldn't be able to afford to further develop all these wonderful cures… And he also kept my USB stick". "What did he confiscate it or something? That's gotta be illegal." exclaimed Edward. But again Bella shook her head. "He just said he would like to keep it for a bit," she admitted. "He explicitly stated that I could have it back anytime. As soon as I gave them my agreement not to present the stuff they don't want presented." She fell silent and they drank their coffees for a little while without saying anything.

"Did they know about your results?" Edward asked. "''Cos if it was in the abstract and they didn't want you to present it, they could have just not given you an oral presentation. They could have buried it in the last poster session on the last day or something". "That's true," said Bella slowly. She was thinking hard. "But it wasn't in the abstract. I didn't get the results of the analysis from Steve until about a week ago. The original abstract just said 'results of the analysis to follow'." Bella frowned "But unless they do this with everyone; just check out their work in case they don't like the results. Then they must have known about my results beforehand. But how? Unless they got them from Steve, and his name was on the abstract so they could have asked him but I can't believe he wouldn't mention it if someone had asked for my results…" "Who is Steve?" asked Edward. "He's my ex-biostatistics lecturer. We stayed in contact and he sometimes helps me out with statistical analysis. He does it for lots of students. He's become a good friend. Which just goes to show that you can be friends with your ex!" she concluded humourously. "Hey, we're friends aren't we?" he appealed. His smile was intimate and she blushed a little. She regretted her moment of teasing. Was _she_ flirting now? Sternly, she told herself to get back to the problem at hand. Then something else occurred to her.

"They know where my room is," she said softly. "Huh?" Edward looked puzzled. Bella told him about the note slipped under her door earlier that day. "Uh oh" he said. "Would you like me to come up with you?" Bella was relieved. "Actually, I'd really like that" she said. "I know I'm probably being ridiculous but the corporate mouthpiece was really creepy…" "Do you know who he was" asked Edward. "Actually I do' she said. "He gave me his card so that I could contact him to get my memory stick back. I've got it in my bag, here" and she drew out a business card with the Sprague and Dowley serpent logo. Edward took it from her and read "Nick Lades. Managing Director, Communications. Why don't you write a letter to the company and complain?" Bella pulled a face at his suggestion, took a sip of her coffee and pulled another face. "You know" she said "Now that I've warmed up, this coffee tastes like shit. No wait, it doesn't taste like anything, not even coffee. Have you finished?" Edward rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, Melbourne has better coffee than anywhere in the known universe, I remember" he said tolerantly. "Come on let's go" he drained his drink, collected the cups and threw them away on the way out. "Thank you for coming to find me by the way" said Bella on their way out the door 'What happened with that?" "Nothing much" he said, looking away. "I had been standing there minding your computer for what felt like ages. I felt like that guy at the party who you hand your drink and say 'Here hold on to this' and then never go back to. I looked around the room and I couldn't see you anywhere. I waited for about ten minutes but I still couldn't see you so I asked a couple of people and someone said they thought they saw you go down the stairs to the meeting rooms…so I went down there and there was this guy standing outside the door. I went up and asked after you and he started saying that I couldn't go in and his attitude pissed me off so I hassled him a bit. You know, there was no one else around there and it was a bit weird…" he trailed off. "Well, thanks" she said a little awkwardly. When he didn't respond, she added "And thanks for coming with me like this. I feel a bit silly now. I'm sure it will be fine'. "No problem" he said airily. They got into the lift and he rested against the wall and stared straight ahead. He was still carrying all the bags.

Bella led the way down the corridor to her room feeling increasingly foolish and also worrying slightly about whether Edward would want to stay and talk or something. Especially the "or something". She took out her key and opened the door cautiously. Her mouth dropped open. The lights in her room were all on and the room was in chaos.


	5. Chapter 5

Bella stood in the doorway and found that she couldn't move. Her heart beat painfully in her chest. After hearing her gasp, Edward pushed past her into the little entry.

"Shit!" he said eloquently.

All the drawers were hanging open. The clothes that she had put in a couple of them were lying in a pile on the floor. Her bed had been stripped and the mattress moved to one side, presumably to exclude anything hidden under it.

Edward told Bella to stay where she was and looked into the bathroom. He came out quickly, then poked his head into the closed side of the wardrobe and behind the curtains. Bella realised that he was looking to see if the intruders were still there and felt increasingly shaky. She hugged her way along the wall and sat down on a chair.

"No-one?" she asked him as he knelt down in front of her. He shook his head. "Nope they've gone. What do you think they were looking for? I wonder if anything's missing."

Bella discovered that she was holding her breath and exhaled visibly. She walked further into the room and sank into a chair placed in the corner next to the television unit. "I don't think anything will be missing" she said slowly "Because I think you were carrying what they wanted" she said, looking pointedly towards the door where he had dumped what he was carrying. She got up and picked the small black computer bag off the floor. "This" she said exhibiting it to him. "My computer. They don't want me to make that presentation and they'll do anything to stop me. It's nuts. Either that or some complete strangers broke in here and trashed the place looking for cash and jewelry. I suppose it's possible".

Edward could think of nothing comforting to say. He walked over to the bed and began to push the mattress back on. "I'll help you put this back together again" he said, suiting the action to the words until suddenly stopping only a few seconds later. "Unless you want to complain to the management" he said doubtfully. "Do you want to? You could insist on moving rooms, say that you don't feel safe. At least then they wouldn't easily be able to find you". "I could" she said. I don't really like the thought that they could be back at any second. But the only way to really get away would be to check out. Change hotels."

"Maybe you should. They could be back any time". Edward looked down. "You could come and stay with me" he said with apparent carelessness, examining his hands.

Bella felt a rush of gratitude. "I would" she said "But you've already got a roommate. I don't think there's room for me as well". He shrugged and looked her directly in the eyes. "I could sleep on the floor" he said. "Or you could sleep with me. We managed to sleep in single beds in the past".

Bella grinned at the memory. "Yeah, I don't know how we did that" she said. Edward looked down again. "I don't think we cared if we slept as long as we were together" he said. Bella felt a slight panic at the turn the conversation had taken. "These days I think sleeping by myself is a treat. Jacob seems to take up most of the bed and he's always so hot, not in the Paris Hilton sense, I'm always feeling like pushing him away and throwing off the covers". Edward grinned back "I find that with Tanya too".

Bella felt a jolt and for the second time that evening her mouth dropped open. "Who's Tanya?" she asked. Edward gave a slightly guilty grin "My girlfriend" he said. "Your girlfriend!" exclaimed Bella. "You never said anything about a girlfriend. When were you going to tell me about her?"

Edward refused to appear guilty. "When you asked about her" he replied sunnily.

Bella didn't know what to say. It was true that she had avoided the topic of relationships partly out of a desire not to talk about her marriage in case it was hurtful or even just awkward but she had to admit that part of her motivation was the feeling that she didn't want to think about him with anyone else.

"You'll have to tell me all about her" she said easily enough "But right now, I need to pack and get out of here".

They came up with a plan. Bella point-blank refused to report the break-in to management. She pointed out that they would probably get the police who almost certainly wouldn't find anything. In any case she was sure who was responsible. Edward conceded that it would slow them down and perhaps make it more obvious that she was leaving but he thought it might cause them to think twice in the future. Bella quickly threw everything into her suitcase, checking to see if anything was missing. Apart from clothes, everything valuable had been with her at the reception. While she did that, Edward rang some nearby hotels using the "visitor's guide" which had been left in the room.

"They've got a room at the ANA" he reported after a few minutes. "It's not exactly cheap. I think it's a suite. The other two I rang said they were all booked out, probably because of the conference". "Great" Bella called from the bathroom. "I'll take it. But better put it under your name". Edward finished his phone conversation and put his mobile away. "Alright, we'd better get over there. You realise they're still going to charge you here for tonight?" Bella pulled a face. "That's the least of my worries right at the moment" she pointed out. "I'm more worried about getting out of here without making it too obvious"

Again, they made a plan. Edward would take her suitcase down to the foyer, get in a taxi and circle the block. She would go to the desk and check out and then ring him. When the taxi was outside the door she would get in and they would go off to the new hotel where Edward would register under his name. "Can we give them a completely false name?" wondered Bella. Edward thought this unlikely to work. Unless they were actually watching her all the time and followed her, they wouldn't be able to find the new hotel. Edward thought it was unlikely they would expend so much effort. "Not when they know where you are going to be tomorrow" he pointed out. Bella sighed and admitted the truth of this. "Can I take a different taxi?" she asked. Edward appeared nonplussed. "Why would you want to do that?" he asked. "So that I can point to your taxi and shout 'follow that cab," she explained. "I always wanted to do that and I might as well get some fun out of being the target of major pharmaceutical company's wrath". Edward shook his head at her and picked up her suitcase with the computer hidden inside it. "I'll guard it with my life" he said solemnly and then gave her a pat on the cheek. "See you soon".

Bella found herself embarrassed by his small gesture. She gave him a push. "Go on" she said. "I'll see you soon". Just as he put his hand on the doorknob she called out impulsively "Edward!" He turned to her, and raised his eyebrows questioningly, slightly alarmed. "Thanks" she said. He grinned and disappeared into the corridor and she sat down to wait five minutes as they had planned. The thought of him waiting for her in the taxi was some comfort, but she found being alone brought back the feelings of fear and panic, the thought of being so small against an enemy with unexpected malice and immeasurable resources. Bella waited as long as she could but sometime before the five minutes were up she heard people chatting, walking down the corridor. The thought that there was safety in crowds was far too tempting and leaving the lights on, she bolted from the room.

The plan went smoothly and they soon found themselves in a very nice room on the 23rd floor of the new hotel. Edward insisted on looking through the room before her ignoring her sarcastic comments about what he would do if a found a Sprague and Dowley man "with evil intentions". Bella wasn't intending to be mean but it was now nearly 10 o'clock and the coffee was wearing off and jet lagged exhaustion setting in. She really just wanted to go to bed. Still, when Edward said that he would be off to his hotel, she hesitated at the thought of being left alone.

"Make sure you bolt and lock your door" he said. "Actually, put one of those chairs from the sitting room bit in front of it, just for the hell of it. They're not likely to make it in the window" he added. Bella nodded and leaned on the wall behind near the door. "I'll see you in the morning" he told her. "Do you want me to come over for breakfast?" he was teasing her, but also asking a genuine question.

Bella found herself pursuing a desperate internal struggle. She was safe, all her logic and reason told her that nothing more was going to happen tonight but she knew that she would be sleeping with one ear open, waiting to hear strange noises in the dark. The solution was to ask Edward to stay, but she knew that for many reasons, her husband, his girlfriend, some of the looks he had given her, the fact that the couch was too small for him just to name a few, she should let him go back to his room. She hesitated but watching him step toward the door decided her.

"Edward, would you mind staying with me?" she said in a small voice. When he didn't immediately reply, she went on hurriedly "I mean, I'm sure I'll be safe and everything but it's all so strange and I'd love to have some company but I don't want you to feel like you have to or anything…"

Edward stepped away from the door. "I'd love to" he said "I thought you'd never ask. Can I borrow your toothbrush?


	6. Chapter 7

The knowledge that someone else was nearby was comforting and Bella slid gratefully into a very deep sleep. At 2 am however, when she opened her eyes, the thought that there was someone else sleeping on the other side of the bed was enough to make her feel instantly awake. Everything was so quiet that she now felt her former fears were foolish, the product of jet lag and exhaustion, and now she had the problem of Edward having stayed the night. Although, all he was doing was sleeping.

That brought on the more concerning thoughts of what to do about the real problem. She had to concede the S&D man's point that she wasn't at all convinced that her oral contraceptive data was in any way important. It was probably something confounding the association, she thought. So, if that was the case, why should she care so much about altering the presentation? Surely, the most sensible course was to just do as they suggested. Everything that had happened was still so lurid and incredible she felt slightly offended by it. She tried hard to consciously divert her thoughts to something innocuous.

Eventually she managed to get back to sleep.

She was woken by a gentle touch on her shoulder and someone saying softly "Bells, wake up". She sat bolt upright, startled, and found herself looking straight in the eyes of her ex-boyfriend. "Wassgoinon?" she asked incoherently.

"It's about 7am" he said in a quiet tone. "I'm going to go back to my hotel and have a shower, get changed and then come back and get you. After I leave, lock the door, put the chain on. I'll ring you from downstairs and tell you how many times I'll knock at the door when I come back so that you'll know it's me. Then we'll go and have breakfast. What do you think?"

Bella sat up and attempted to concentrate. She could see by the bright rim of light around the curtains that it was already daylight outside. Once again, her fears of the night before seemed foolish. "You don't need to do that" she protested. "I'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen to me. You get dressed, have a leisurely breakfast and I'll see you there".

Edward continued to regard her seriously for a minute. "I'll be back to take you to breakfast" he said quietly but firmly. "You better get up or you'll still be in bed by the time I get back". He put a gentle hand on her cheek for just a moment and then he turned to go out the door. "Come and lock up after me" he called over his shoulder.

Bella scrambled out of bed, put her pyjamas to rights and followed him to the door. Although she felt that last night's fears were groundless there was no doubt that getting in the shower might bring back the previous feelings of vulnerability. As she prepared to get into the hot water, visions of the shower scene from "Psycho" began to float through her head. She tried to wrestle the desk chair into the bathroom to prop against the door but gave up half way when she couldn't squeeze it past the bed. She settled for putting it against the door to the room, gathered her clothes together and abandoned herself to the pleasure of a very hot shower.

About forty-five minutes later, her phone rang. It was Edward. "Six" he said inexplicably until she remembered the earlier plan. "I'm getting into the lift right now" he added and hung up. As she put the phone down she realised that there was a text message waiting to be read which proved to be from her husband, Jacob. With a terrible feeling of guilt, she sat down to answer it although she hesitated over what to say. She did type 'drug company making threats unless I change my talk', but deleted it and sent an innocuous 'just got up and dressed, going to breakfast and then conference' instead.

Edward came into the room, hair still wet, in a shirt that was exactly the same as the previous day's shirt but a different colour. As soon as he caught her eyes he smiled; she knew that without even thinking the same smile was reflected on her face. "Don't you look nice" he said and she frowned, blushing and looked away. "I'll just be a minute" she called retreating to the bathroom. "Uh huh" he replied. When she came out of the bathroom five minutes later she was surprised to see him stretched out on the bed watching television. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Aren't we going?" "Sorry" he said getting off the bed and switching off the television. "I know your minutes in the bathroom of old and they tend to be very long minutes" he told her with a wry grin. She pretended to be annoyed. "Perhaps I've changed" she said shortly. "Not so much" he replied and once again their eyes caught and held until the sound of a text message arriving on her phone made Bella pull away. I've got to stop doing that, she told herself.

On her way past she carefully collected her computer which she had packed away earlier. She had deliberated about this step, as it was unlikely that Sprague and Dowley knew which hotel she had moved to, she had considered either leaving it in the room or down at the desk. Finally, she decided that she would worry too much about it in either case and decided to keep it with her.

The message was from Jacob, saying how he was to glad to hear from her as he had been worried. As they travelled down in the lift, she responded rather hastily that all was well and then put her phone away. She felt awkward about messaging Jacob in front of Edward or perhaps she felt awkward being with Edward while messaging Jacob, she wasn't sure.

They had a quick breakfast in a café on the way to the conference centre which was back at the hotel where she had been staying. Bella insisted on paying for breakfast but had trouble finding the right combination of coins and notes. "Sorry", she told the bored-looking girl behind the counter. "I'm really not feeling too awake" she told Edward while pouring sugar in her large cup of coffee. "How did you sleep?" "Really, really well" he said with a huge smile. She couldn't help laughing in return although it gave her a pang of self-distrust. They chatted inconsequentially over breakfast, avoiding any subjects which might disrupt their peaceful meal by unspoken agreement. Leaving the café, they joined the gathering crowds on the pavements heading for work. Occasionally, they noticed a telltale conference bag slung over someone's shoulder. During the short walk, whether it was the effect of the sun or the coffee, Bella felt much more optimistic and her mood lightened. She and Edward walked along at a comfortable pace in companiable silence. Then all at once she noticed that they were holding hands.


	7. Chapter 8

Just outside the conference hotel, Bella recognized her friend Angela from the night before. She said hello, using the action to let go of Edward's hand; although the hand-holding hadn't been unpleasant, it disturbed her because she wasn't sure what he meant by it. She wasn't sure what she meant by it either.

"I'm so sorry about that rep last night" said Angela startling Bella out of her uneasy hand holding reflections. She looked at Angela, puzzling out her meaning. Did she know what happened? "I didn't realise that you were such a target, being a conference presenter. They were being really aggressive with their marketing last night. Did he crap on at you for long?" Bella reassured her that it wasn't her fault. "They would have found me sooner or later" she commented. Clearly Angela had no idea what had happened, Bella thought to herself and then she was even more frightened by the momentary paranoia that had suggested that her friend might actually have been part of the conspiracy.

Edward followed the two girls into the main auditorium which had been filled with rows of chairs facing a central stage. They took seats towards the middle, about a third of the way down the room and sat expectantly. Bella was acutely aware of Edward sitting on her left side. Very deliberately, she tried to keep her head turned away. Watching the doors, Bella saw the loathsome Mike push past an elderly Indian man, clutching a cup of coffee. She recognized a couple of other faces from other parts of the country. There was no-one else from Melbourne. Angela waved at a couple of colleagues who she knew to be from Adelaide. The room was filling up. Everyone was looking forward to the first speaker.

The first lecture was to be given by Harold Chorley, who was as close to a celebrity as a scientist could become. Originally an evolutionary biologist, he had authored several popular books and become a favourite with television, radio and print media. Forthright and eloquent, he could always be relied on for comment even if the issue was not strictly in his area of expertise. Despite this populist activity, he still maintained an academic career and the respect of his peers although possibly mixed with a certain envy at his skills. His books sold well but he also used his notoriety to good effect in gaining grants for his university and his own personal research fund. His laboratory was very well-resourced and produced copious amounts of excellent scientific achievements. At a forum such as the current one, Professor Chorley would no doubt be presenting the work of some of his team rather than anything with which he had been directly involved. Some of his colleagues called him a front man and a show pony but their comments were tinged with envy. There was no doubt that Harold Chorley was a personality to be reckoned with. He would be a major focus for the media. He was a prize for the conference organizers as his presence guaranteed the conference maximum mainstream publicity but despite that his talk was likely to be interesting and relevant from a scientific perspective. There was a definite sense of expectation from the full audience.

Harold Chorley was introduced by the president of the RCOG taking several minutes to list his achievements. It was a measure of the audience's keen anticipation that no-one became restive; there were no mutterings or stirrings. Hardly anyone even coughed.

Professor Chorley stood back politely during his introduction. He was of an unprepossessing appearance with slightly long graying hair swept back from his face, thick glasses and a worn jacket of an old-fashioned tweed pattern. One could almost suspect that he had made an effort to appear unfashionable; he was certainly noticeable. When the president of the Royal College had finished he took the podium with a diffident air and began "My goodness that was quite an introduction. Even I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say". After a pause for laughter he launched into his own introduction, showing a picture of his university, his staff and a slide advertising his research foundation. A couple of flash photographs were taken by media representatives, no doubt for later use. Then the Professor put up a slide which said simply "The End of the Humanity".

The audience was absolutely silent.

Professor Chorley began an evolutionary perspective on the development of life on Earth. "From the simplest chemicals in an organic chemical soup", he announced "An extraordinary chain of events resulted in life on Earth as we know it. Particularly the development of DNA, a blueprint of instructions that can replicate itself as well as a structure around the DNA supporting it which is otherwise known as the animal".

While he said this, he showed the audience the development of the familiar double helix, a slide with the words "primordial soup" and various descriptions of peptides and subsequent slides which stated "RNA world hypothesis", "spontaneously forming phospholipid monolayers and bilayers" all accompanied by illustrations. None of this was new to the audience but they were still silent as Chorley was an entertaining speaker.

"DNS replication in complex eukaryotes like humans has developed into the complex processes of mitosis and particularly meiosis. In human females, oocytes are arrested at the diplotene stage of meiosis I. At this stage the synaptonemal complex degrades and homologous chromosomes separate from one another a little. The chromosomes themselves uncoil a bit, allowing some transcription of DNA. However, the homologous chromosomes of each bivalent remain tightly bound at chiasmata, the regions where crossing-over occurred. The chiasmata remain on the chromosomes until they are severed in the next phase, Anaphase I".

He showed an animation of meiosis. "We know all this," whispered Edward suddenly in her ear. Bella half-started to find him so close to her. "When is he going to get to something new?"

"In general, human reproduction is not very efficient, non-disjunction has been estimated at anywhere from 30 to 60% of all conceptions. In addition to this there are occasional misinterpretations of instructions which result in structural abnormalities. No one knows the exact cause of this. A number of risk factors have been identified which are related mostly to nutrition. Some classic examples that we see here are lack of folate and neural tube defects and poorly controlled diabetes and caudal regression syndrome. These all relate to spinal development however other associations are known such as lithium and cardiac abnormalities. It is interesting to speculate on the structural abnormalities which tend to fall into specific easily recognizable types. We never see completely scrambled instructions such as ears on backs or lower limbs for example".

He proudly displayed a photoshop slide of himself with an ear on his cheek. There was mild laughter from the audience. Bella found herself catching Edward's eye. She blushed and quickly looked away again. The very experienced Professor soon brought the audience back to the topic. "My research group has been working on this for years. One of the areas we have focused on is the hedgehog signaling pathway".

"In a growing embryo, cells develop differently in the head or tail end of the embryo, the left or right, and other positions. They also form segments which develop into different body parts. The **hedgehog signaling pathway** gives cells this information that they need to make the embryo develop properly. Different parts of the embryo have different concentrations of hedgehog signaling proteins."

His next slide showed a complex web of pathways in a cell. The Professor asked for the lights to be dimmed further. With a laser pointer he indicated a few areas to the right of the diagram.

"The hedgehog signaling pathway is one of the key regulators of animal development conserved from flies to humans. The pathway takes its name from its polypeptide ligand, an intercellular signaling molecule called Hedgehog (Hh) found in fruit flies of the genus . Hh is one of Drosophila's segment polarity gene products, involved in establishing the basis of the fly. The molecule remains important during later stages of embryogenesis and metamorphosis.

Mammals have three Hedgehog homologues, of which sonic hedgehog is the best studied. The pathway is equally important during vertebrate embryonic development. In knockout mice lacking components of the pathway, the brain, skeleton, musculature, gastrointestinal tract and lungs fail to develop correctly."

He moved to his next slide. "There are many excellent presentations scheduled this afternoon by researchers from my own lab as well as others looking at various SNPs and gene expression factors in relation to Sonic Hedgehog homologue and patched and smoothened as well. Although much of this is fascinating work, I am aware that it is yet to prove conclusive. Clearly in the MSAS condition, Hedgehog proteins are the most likely candidates as they are well known to be closely associated with development, however I think I am correct in saying that no one single factor has yet been identified from gene studies that could be responsible for the increase in abnormalities that we are seeing."

As soon as the lights had dimmed, Bella became even more aware of Edward at her side than she had been formerly. She concentrated on keeping her eyes directed toward the slideshow. "God Bella, concentrate!" she found herself thinking. But the harder she tried to think about Professor Chorley's lecture, the more her thoughts strayed to the man sitting beside her. They were sitting so quietly, she was aware of his breathing, his chest rising and falling along with her own. She thought that he was so close, she could just move her leg and then they would be touching. Self-consciously, she crossed her legs.

"Drugs exist and more are in development which could act as agonists or antagonists for the pathway. These would almost certainly be teratogenic but are again unlikely to be the sole explanation. Similarly no-one could name an environmental pollutant that would explain the current phenomenon. Although looking at tomorrow's schedule I'm aware that many investigators are trying".

Almost as soon as she had taken her legs away, she regretted it. She put her arm on the seat rest in between them, to be just a little closer to him. Once more she tried, unsuccessfully to concentrate on the lecture, twisting her lower lip between her teeth.

"But I'd like you to invite you ladies and gentlemen, to divert your attention away from the problem at hand for the moment to the larger picture. The hedgehog signaling pathway has been around for many millions of years and correlates of human hedgehog proteins have been found in very simple creatures for example, in cestode worms. It has been suggested that sonic hedgehog homolog has undergone accelerated evolution in the primate lineage leading to humans. Dorus _et al._ hypothesise that this allowed for more complex regulation of the protein and may have played a role in the increase in volume and complexity of the human brain."

The Professor paused, evidently for dramatic effect. "This accelerated evolutionary process appears to be targeted to the hedgehog proteins and there is no doubt that certain cell components are more likely to feel evolutionary pressures than others. The question is, "has evolution gone too far?" Are we seeing a further mutation in the hedgehog pathway, but one that instead of being beneficial to the human species as we know it, is causing harmful effects?"

"There are two possibilities that I would like to speculate on here. The first is the thought that the hedgehog pathway has been subjected to some kind of evolutionary pressure. It will be hard if not impossible for us to determine from what. Is it chemical additives, computer screens, radiation from wireless devices such as mobile phones? Any or all of these might exert pressures to evolve. Perhaps we are seeing for the first time in human history, the sort of accelerated evolutionary pressure a new environmental condition might bring, such as the rapid change in temperatures that occurred with relatively sudden previous climate change for example. Some of the paleontological climate changes that have been documented from ice core evidence have suggested that in the past the Earth's climate changed rapidly over a period of fifty years or so. This is very similar to what is happening today. Paleontologists have always been somewhat bemused by periods of sudden extinction such as the C**retaceous–Tertiary extinction event**, which occurred approximately 65.5 million years ago but also sudden increases in diversity of species such as the Cambrian explosion. A pathway like the hedgehog with its evident effects on phenotype would be a good candidate to produce mutations. Some of these mutations would not be viable it is true, but some might prove hardier than their ancestors and better adapted to current conditions. Genetic variation is the tool of evolution and perhaps that is what we are witnessing right now in front of us".

Through that last long speech, Bella had been trying subtly to move closer to Edward. Finally, there shoulders touched and she was rewarded with the feel of his warmth against her. She half-glanced at him and saw that he was smiling. She couldn't help admiring his profile.

"'Oh brave new world that has such creatures in it'" the Professor intoned dramatically, causing Bella to jump, as he echoed her thoughts.

"The other possibility, and it has to be faced, is that the human species will not be able to adapt to meet this change, whatever it is. Continual evolutionary pressures will result in extraordinary changes to the hedgehog pathway and possibly spread to other cell signaling pathways but despite these desperate attempts, a new stable phenotype will not be reached. Viable births will decline rapidly as we are already seeing. Perhaps this is the mechanism responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs and so many other apparently successful species. Perhaps what we are seeing is the end of our Homo sapiens sapiens."

Finally the Professor moved to his last slide, one that had become terribly familiar to his audience, a screen divided in four quarters demonstrating various kinds of toxic waste. After regarding the slide himself for a moment or two, Professor Chorley faced his audience. "And perhaps this is not such a bad thing. Humankind has become dangerous; a blight on the face of Gaia. Perhaps the planet is fighting back".

He moved on to his last slide, which stated a number of acknowledgments. "Perhaps I'll leave it at that" he said. "Any questions?"

There was another silence throughout the auditorium. To her surprise Bella felt tear prickling behind her eyes. His speech, his dignity, the incredible sadness to her of what he was proposing, the idea that humanity was fighting a battle against its own developmental processes and one it could not win appeared to her incredibly sad.

An elderly man of subcontinental appearance rose from his seat and walked towards one of the microphones set on stands in the aisles. "Sabaratna Gutamli from UCLA" he began, identifying himself in the approved manner. "Correct me if I am wrong but did you just seriously propose that MSAS represents a kind of embryological failure of homo sapiens, fueled by evolutionary pressures?"

Professor Chorley stood on the platform with raised eyebrows during the question. At the end he bowed his head slightly. "You are absolutely correct," he said quietly.

The questioner appeared to be furious. "That is extremely fatalistic and thoughtless of you" he exclaimed his voice rising with emotion. "Can I remind you that you are among scientists here, not credulous adolescents?"

The Professor was unmoved by the slur. "Nevertheless, it is a possibility to be faced". He stood calmly looking out over the sea of silent faces.

The RCOG president who was chairing the session gave a sickly smile and asked for any further questions but there were none. Usually at an academic conference, this was an opportunity to demonstrate superiority or even to showcase one's own work but today there were no further questions.

"Well it just remains for me to thank Professor Chorley for a very thought-provoking session" he continued, appearing desperately uncomfortable. "Morning tea is being served if people would care to adjourn to the foyer…"


	8. Chapter 9

Circulating around the tables with a cup of peppermint tea, Bella was looking at the faces of the crowd. At the end of Harold Chorley's lecture, predictably the mainstream media had descended in a pack. Professor Chorley was whisked away to the media room where he was no doubt making quotes designed to hit tomorrow's headlines, particularly if it was a slow news day. The audience however had remained in their seats for a while, talking quietly among themselves in low voices before slowly and mechanically filtering out to the tea tables outside the auditorium.

Bella, Angela and Edward all stood together, Bella with her computer and conference bag balanced between her ankles. They were silent for a while until Angela asked in a low voice "Do you think he meant it?" Bella shrugged. It may have been the jet lag but a feeling of general despondency was settling over her. It was a sickly, unreal feeling that might have been because internally she felt it was 4 in the morning but she thought that the fact that someone had just announced the end of her future might also have something to do with it. "Maybe he just wants the publicity," suggested Edward but she could hear the effort in his voice.

The three of them continued to stand in glum silence until a balding man in his late fifties approached them. He had obviously recognized Angela and was coming to talk to her. Angela greeted him and introduced the others. After the initial introductions there was an awkward pause until Angela said "So, what did you think of that for the opening lecture?"

Her visitor seemed reluctant to commit himself. "It was an interesting proposition," he said somewhat grimly. "And very possible. I'm not a biologist as such of course, genetics is my area but still I find his hypothesis completely plausible. We've always known that there is a fragility to human reproduction. The most complex creature genetically, but also the most vulnerable. Look at the fragile X syndrome and who knows how many other similar sorts of conditions exist that have not yet been identified! We know that the Y-chromosome is shrinking, losing bits all the time. Perhaps the gene pool is failing. It's possible," he said again.

Silence fell again among the little group following this speech. Bella caught Edward's eye. With an apparently casual movement he put his hand down, lightly touching her little finger with his own. Bella felt her breathing quicken but left her hand where it was. After a few more minutes, people around them began to gravitate back towards the lecture room and they joined the throng and took their seats.

The next lecture was given by a guest speaker from WHO presenting prevalence data for MSAS from around the globe. The incidence of cases was presented in the US for which there was the most data over the last five years showing that it continued to increase and although the rate of the increase was slowing it had not yet stopped. If cases continued to increase in this way it was projected that a steady state might be reached in another eight to ten years but until then, they could expect the current rise in cases to continue. Then the lecturer presented further data from the UK showing a similar pattern but still in a steeper rising part of the curve although using some computer animations the lecturer attempted to prove to the audience that it was in fact the same shaped curve. More data from Scandinavia appeared, with still more graphs and more convoluted transformations.

Next, the speaker moved on to presenting incidence data from around the world. There was an apparent concentration of cases on the east coast of the United States especially in the south. High incidence rates were also recorded in South America in the north and east with Brazil being particularly affected. Incidence in Europe and Africa appeared to lag behind in terms of ansolute numbers but continues to increase. Continent after continent was documented with blank spots from areas where data was unavailable such as Iran. All countries where data was available appeared to be affected to some extent.

Further computer simulations followed, demonstrating links to climate and weather conditions. Finally he concluded with some economic data, the cost of maintaining a child with these typical malformations, the range of costs. The loss of productive population not just the children themselves but of the parents required to care for them. The gloomy prognostications were totaled in billions of dollars and then the speaker came to a halt.

Unlike the previous speaker a few questions followed. The graph had shown MSAS reaching a stable incidence but what was that estimated to be? The speaker nodded. Inclining his head slightly to the microphone he announced that it was likely to be around 40%. A muffled gasp went round the room. WHO was projecting almost half of pregnancies to be affected by MSAS? Further questions were asked about methods of data collection, ascertainment bias and so forth. Could it be that cases appeared to be getting more frequent just because people were taking more notice of them? Could the curves he had drawn suggesting continual increases be an artifact, the result of more cases being recorded? The speaker didn't think so. He couldn't completely discount the possibility that it might have contributed, of course, but they had undertaken rigorous efforts to compensate for any such effect.

There were no more questions.

Bella and Edward and also Angela and her older colleague filtered out among the crowd to the buffet lunch tables. They stood in line almost silently. Bella couldn't remember a conference with such an atmosphere. Normally after the first half day people would be full of enthusiasm, greeting colleagues friends and rivals, networking enthusiastically. Some intellectual cut and thrust games would be played out in the various discussions, power plays pulled in the question times. Bella was aware of none of that. The mood was universally somber. Bella felt so drained she couldn't help leaning backwards as she queued, resting slightly against Edward. His broad chest felt reassuringly firm.

The four of them collected seats around one of the many tables which had been placed in function room designated for lunch. Gradually they collected a number of other people who one by one asked if they could join and pulled up a chair. Eventually their group spread across three of the small tables. For some reason, nobody wanted to sit by themselves. For such a large group there was very little conversation and when people did speak it was in low voices with very serious expressions.

Bella usually made light of such situations and would often act the clown in a large group or use her acerbic wit to bring people together and give them a common ground but in the current situation she felt unwilling to play her usual role. Even her concerns about the intentions of S&D seemed trivial compared to the prospect of the suggested tragedy.

Edward had finished his lunch earlier and was absentminded polishing a red apple which he had taken from one of the fruit displays that Bella thought were chiefly for show. As she caught his eye he leaned towards her and said quietly "I have to go and pick up my poster for this afternoon. Stay here. You should be alright with everyone else around" and she marveled that he could still be worried about her after the terrible revelations of the morning. She nodded and gave him a tremulous smile. He gently held her forearm, a gesture that sent a thrill through her, then he got up to go.

Watching him go, Bella was reminded that she was supposed to go back to the hotel or try to find a suitable wireless internet access point in order to skype her husband. She had promised Edward that she would stay among the group though and truthfully, now that she had eaten, she was feeling too lethargic to go all the way to her own hotel and back. She considered taking out her laptop and looking for wireless internet networks in the hotel; sometimes large hotels had free access in public spaces but she felt reluctant to take out her computer. She sent Jacob a text saying that she didn't think it would be possible but that all was well. In response to his reply asking about the lectures she typed "Lectures paint very sobering picture of MSAS spread". After she sent it she thought it sounded like the sort of headline a rather restrained newspaper like the Guardian might make of it.

Looking up from her texting she noticed that the crowd around her had thinned considerably as people wandered away to make phone calls, visit the sponsors display booths spread around the edges of the room or go to the toilet. Bella moved to a chair next to Angela and looked around anxiously. She felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable.

Her attention was momentarily distracted by the sight of the well-known president of the society making his way around the room apparently determined to meet with all the different groups. As she watched, his meandering progress drew him closer to their table. When he finally reached them he greeted the elderly scientist on Angela's other side and then turned to Angela and herself.

"I'm Luke Grale" he introduced himself and very obviously waited for a response. Angela hastened to make the introductions. "I'm Angela," she said "I'm a clinical researcher from Adelaide in Australia where a work for Professor Susan Hancock". Prof Grale, the president of the society inclined his head gravely and made a brief comment about his admiration for Prof Hancock's work on hyperemesis. He then turned to look at Bella expectantly.

Reluctantly Bella introduced herself. To her alarm the president said "May I?" indicating the chair next to her and sat himself down. "I'm looking forward to your presentation very much" he said on sitting down, "the abstract was very interesting. If I remember correctly, it was the only offered epidemiological study anywhere near that size. I'm sure it will produce some interesting findings"

Bella stiffened in her seat. His excellent memory seemed suspicious to her. "I don't know about that," she said, as lightly as she could. "It's just a pilot study. There will be as many spurious results as true findings". Prof Grale nodded "The key will be in trying to distinguish between the two" he said. Bella nodded. She was trying to decide whether this innocuous conversation had any hidden meanings. She felt a chill when the eminent scientist leaned towards her and said "I wonder if I might have a word with you in private Dr Swan?" She stalled, shooting a desperate look towards the door hoping that Edward might choose that moment to reappear. "Er, I'm just waiting for someone" she said. "These are his things that I'm minding" she added. "It'll just be a few minutes" he replied smoothly. "I'm sure your friend will wait for you". He stood up, very obviously waiting for her, attracting surprised glances from the others still sitting in groups of one or two. "He'll probably come looking for me" Bella corrected him, but he made no response, continuing to stand in front of her courteously indicating the way.

Unwillingly, Bella asked Angela if she would look after the computer stressing that it belonged to Edward who was coming back for it very soon. Angela nodded, leaving Bella no choice but to go with the Society President. She marched in front of him holding her head high.

Prof Grale led her to the SMFM booth and they went to an area curtained off at the back where there were a couple of chairs and spare pamphlets and other paraphernalia. She sat down but he remained standing in front of her.

"I'm sure you know what this is about" he began almost apologetically. 'I've never found myself in this position before but I had a visit from the managing director of Sprague and Dowley this morning and he is threatening to withdraw their sponsorship if you present your data implicating the newest oral contraceptives. Naturally I sympathise with you. As a young scientist, I'm sure that you are keen to represent yourself properly and I'm also sure that you feel very strongly about your research. I also feel strongly that research independence is important but the truth is that if they withdraw their sponsorship then that's the end of our conference. The registrations will barely pay for today. Then there's the deposit, the loss of income for the other sponsors, compensation…" he took off his glasses and rubbed his hand over his eyes. "It really doesn't bear thinking about" he said. "We'd have to make it up out of the Society funds and S&D contribute a lot to those too. There'd be no fellowships this year, no scholarships even. So I'm asking you as a favour to do as they want. I'll make it up to you. It's important work that you are presenting and I'm sure the judges for the Young Investigator prize will agree with me, especially as I am one of them. That would be a good boost to your career, wouldn't it? What do you say?"

Bella was honestly speechless. She was horrified at the president's plea and the form it took. She felt sick at the thought of the reach and influence of S&D. "I don't know" she said bewildered. "All of this seems so excessive in response to my little research project. I can't believe it is happening"

"It might seem excessive to you" the president said with a sigh, "But it's potentially millions of dollars to them. And millions of dollars can make people do all sorts of strange things". He seemed sad.

Bella bowed her head. "I don't know what to do," she said. "I don't want to wreck the conference or cause the SMFM all that trouble over one presentation" she said truthfully "But I don't like being bullied by a drug company either. Then again if it's really the beginning of the end for Homo sapiens what does it all matter?"

"Yes, he took an unexpectedly grim view of things this morning didn't he?" agreed the President unexpectedly. "Made me think I was glad that I am nearing retirement and will be gone before the end comes. Members of the media are still arriving with requests to interview him," he added. "It's going to be all over the news tonight. Good publicity for us" he added, "All the same I wish he hadn't said it like that". "Why?" she asked, interested to hear the thoughts of the president on the subject. He turned to her and looked her directly in the eyes. "Because I find," he said, "That I believe him."

There was a silence. At length, Prof Gale turned to her and said. "We do have one other option". "What's that?" she asked in a small voice. "We just don't let you present" he said then his voice hardened. "Ever".

Bella made her way back to where they had been sitting for lunch rather shakily. From across the room, the chairs appeared initially to be deserted and she felt a terrible internal jolt at the thought that something might have happened to Angela as well as her laptop but then she saw that Angela was standing and talking to a group of people a little further off. Relieved, she went and retrieved her possessions. Fortunately Angela was talking, and only stopped to ask very briefly "What did Prof Gale want?" Bella merely rolled her eyes and shrugged and Angela went back to her conversation. A few minutes later, Edward appeared, obviously looking for her. His anxious expression lightened when he saw her.

"Have you put up your poster?" she asked. 'Can I go and see it? We've just got time before the session starts". She pulled him towards the stairs and Edward followed her at once. "What's up?" he asked in a low voice as they went down the stairs to the poster exhibition room. "You won't believe this," she told him quietly "But the President of the MFM Society just tried to bribe and bully me into changing my presentation. When I didn't immediately say yes, he threatened to blacklist me. I can't believe it". Edward gave her one concerned look and then listened as she told him the story. They continued to walk slowly to the mostly deserted exhibition hall and loitered around the posters in the middle of the room speaking in very low voices.

Edward was incredulous. "I can't believe he said any of that" he exclaimed. "He's very well-respected. His reputation is spotless. I can't believe he would be involved in anything so underhand…" "I don't think he was very happy about it" she said slowly "But I think he believed he had no choice and he was doing that whole 'thinking of the greater good' thing". They were silent for a few minutes. "What are you going to do?" asked Edward, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Bella dropped her eyes. "I don't know," she said softly. "Go to the lecture?"


	9. Chapter 10

The next session was on the theme of genetics. Some people had taken a candidate gene approach, looking at genes that were likely to be involved, others had tried to cover as many genes as possible just in case. The session consisted of six ten minute sessions, each filled with dense scientific detail but no conclusive results. Half way through, Bella found her eyes closing. She was surprised to feel her head being gently placed on a shoulder. She rested there for a couple of minutes before she realised that the shoulder belonged to Edward, that she was at a scientific conference, that they weren't going out any more and that she really shouldn't be doing it. She pulled her head suddenly upright but he gave her a hurt look and she smiled at him to reassure him. It was so easy, it felt so natural to let herself be comforted by him. Besides his shoulder seemed just the right height and he smelled wonderful. Bella found herself slipping into reminisensce, her head dropped, apparently of its own accord and she lost the thread of the lecture. She was aware of Edward's broad chest moving in and out with his breaths which and if she turned her head slightly, she could hear the drum of his heartbeat which sounded a little fast.

At the end of the talks, she went with Edward to the poster exhibition. She happily stood by the poster and watched Edward discussing his findings with various people stopping by. One of the official judges for the session, a statuesque blonde, seemed particularly interested and spent some time asking questions. Bella became aware that she was watching closely but she couldn't find any sign that Edward was flirting with her. When she realized how closely she was watching with the first stirrings of something resembling jealousy, Bella decided that she had better leave.

Bella wandered up and down the row but was really feeling too tired to engage in conversation. The general mood was still subdued; she thought that the inconclusive genetic sessions might have contributed. People were beginning to joke about the morning's session although the laughter definitely had a hysterical edge. She kept an eye out for the SMFM president but he never appeared. She wondered what he was doing.

At last the poster session was drawing to a close. People gathered around the open area to hear the judges announce the winners of the session. Bella was only half listening when she heard them announce "Dr Edward Masen".

Bella gasped in surprise and pleasure. She watched as Edward, looking rather embarrassed, went to collect his certificate for his award. After the presentation, the crowds melted away quickly but Edward was closely engaged in conversation with the judges who showed no signs of leaving. Especially the tall blonde woman who was talking to Edward, with her hand resting lightly on his arm.

Bella considered walking up to them but they seemed utterly engrossed. She paced away a little to check the time on the large clock near the entrance to the room.

"Dr Swan?" Bella didn't turn around. She began to walk quickly back into the room. A large man in a suit stood in her way. Bella felt a burst of panic. "Excuse me" she said and tried to sidestep only to find her way blocked again. Two more men appeared on either side of her. "Please come with us," said one of them. Bella winced. Again she tried briefly to sidestep but they anticipated her. One took each of her arms and she gave up. Without any further resistance, she let them lead her away.

Bella's desperate visions of being tied to a chair and beaten were partly relieved when she found herself being taken into one of the small conference rooms, She was also relieved that two of the large silent men who had escorted her left, to stand next to the door.

The meeting room was dimly lit. Peering around, Bella saw a man sitting at the head of the highly polished table who she recognized as the S&D man who had threatened her yesterday. The room was highly decorated in rich draperies and plush carpet; it seemed an incongruous setting for what she guessed was not going to be a very pleasant interview.

"Have a seat Dr Swan," said the S&D man flatly. Bella sat on the decorative chair at the end of the table opposite him still clutching the strap from her computer back and her conference bag. She was aware that the two men were still standing behind her.

The S&D man was wearing a grey suit today. He regarded her for a moment and then said "So, Dr Swan do we have your agreement?"

Bella scowled. She hated all of this, she thought they were being so unreasonable, it seemed like a personal insult. On the other hand, she found herself thinking, in light of the day's revelation that perhaps this was the beginning of the end for her species, did her pathetic little scientific presentation really matter? She had no children and now possibly she never would. There would be nothing to leave behind and no-one to leave it to. What did it all matter? Overwhelmed suddenly by a feeling of futility borne out of the day's revelations, recent events and the exhaustion of travelling, she bowed her head. "Sure" she said, "Who cares after all?"

The S&D man smiled widely. "That is excellent. I'm sure we are very pleased at your wise decision. All the same I think it is too much of a risk to let you present at this meeting. You might let something slip in the heat of the moment." Before she had time to react, one of the men standing behind her came forward and snatched the bags out of her hands including her computer. "We'll keep this," she was told "Just in case you change your mind" you can pick it up from the main reception after your lecture slot is over".

Suddenly the door rattled and the handle turned. It was locked. A fist pounded on the door and a voice yelled "Bella? Bella are you there?" Bella held her breath. It was Edward, finally escaped from the poster session and come to find her. She couldn't help but be grateful, however considering the way things had gone she wished he weren't there. She found herself holding her breath and hoping he would go away.

He didn't. After a moment or two she heard his voice again, just as loudly, with him banging on a door to the next room. Then he just stood in the middle of the foyer and shouted "Bella, if you're down here make some kind of noise. If I don't find you in the next ten minutes I'm coming back with hotel security and maybe the police!"

There was a brief silence after this threat, and then the S&D spokesman said, "Go, get him".

"No!" screamed Bella jumping out of her chair "Leave him alone!" The two dark-suited men who had been standing by the door opened it and left the room. When Bella tried to follow, the third man grabbed her by the arm and held her so painfully it brought tears to her eyes. "Edward" she screamed again "Run!"


	10. Chapter 11

By then the two men were back, bringing Edward with them. He didn't seem to be putting up a fight; in fact he was ahead of them. She realised that he had heard her and was coming to her rescue. He marched in and walked straight to her. "Are you alright?" he asked, holding her gently by her upper arms, vivid green eyes searching her own.

"Yes" she reassured him. "I'm fine". "What's going on?" was his next question. "I've just agreed not to give my presentation," she told him dully. "They've taken my computer but I can have it back after the session I was supposed to be in is over". Edward swung round towards the S&D executive still sitting at the end of the table, still gripping Bella by the arm. "Bastards" he said dramatically. "You can't do this! There are laws against this. I'll see you in court for this."

The S&D executive appeared unimpressed. His eyes flicked to one of the others and he raised his chin briefly. Two of the suits picked up Edward by the arms and slammed him against the wall. For a moment, his tall skinny body was outlined against the tastefully striped wallpaper. Then, with sudden, shocking violence one of the men punched him in the gut. Winded, Edward crumpled over holding his stomach. They pulled him upright and one of them struck him in the jaw. Again he bent over, and then sank to his knees.

Bella could hear the sound of a scream in the air and realised it was her own. The whole sickly display had taken only a few seconds, a minute at the most. She burst into furious remonstrance "That was totally unnecessary! I agreed to do what you say! Why did you have to hurt him?" Taking a deep breath, she walked as firmly as she could past the two suited thugs who stayed standing their expressions unmoved. She bent down over her fallen defender and put an arm around him. "Edward," she said and was overcome by tears.

"I strongly suggest you leave quietly now," said the corporate spokesman. "I don't think I would try any legal action if I were you. Sprague and Dowley has the best lawyers". "They need them," muttered Edward thickly against Bella's shoulder but there was no real resistance in his words. Bella helped Edward to stand up. He was still holding his abdomen. He leaned heavily on her shoulder but because he was so much taller than her it she wasn't sure if it was helping.

"Don't forget your conference bag," said the S&D executive with some irony. One of the suited thugs retrieved it from the floor and handed it to her with exaggerated courtesy. Slowly, without looking back, they left the room.

"Enjoy the rest of the conference" called the S&D exec from behind them.

They made their way back to their hotel. Edward kept his arm around her shoulder although he no longer leant heavily on her. She thought that now he was supporting her more than she was supporting him. For her part, Bella felt as if her world had been ripped apart and remade. It was not the orderly place of laws and rules that she had thought. The rule of brute force was alive and well even in academia. Perhaps the end of the species was a good thing, she thought. Perhaps man was too brutal, too thoughtless, and too ugly to survive.

They reached the safety of the hotel room and threw the chain across. Edward went to lie down on the bed. He tried to pull Bella with him but she broke away briefly. "Something I want to do" she said, dragging the chair in front of the door. Then she came over to the bed where Edward was holding out his arm for her. She cuddled into his side and reached up to stroke his cheek. "I'm so sorry" she whispered. She was thrilled when he reached for her. His arms around her felt so familiar, so right, like something fitting into place. She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes, drinking in the smell of his skin and the feel of him next to her. She let the outside world fade away while she gently ran her hands over his chest and gradually up his neck to cup his cheek.

He winced.

"Oh God, you're hurt!" exclaimed Bella and got up to get some iced water for his cheek which was still looking red. Edward took the ice-filled face washer and held it against his jaw, screwing his face against the pain. To distract himself, he flicked on the television and turned over to CNN. The bar at the bottom of the screen read "Eminent scientist describes fetal abnormality menace as 'the end of the species'". The news anchor was interviewing Harold Chorley. "Hey" said Edward "Harold's certainly getting some publicity". They watched the interview and some excerpts from his lecture in silence and then Bella reached for the remote control and turned the volume off. 'What if he's right?" she asked in a small voice. "What?" asked Edward. "Well, what if this is the end of our species? Doesn't that mean there's no future? Ultimately, we are driven to do things for the survival of our genes. Even if we personally don't have offspring, that's what it's sort of about. If I try to research something it's for my own intellectual interest, yes, but somewhere I'm thinking of future generations benefitting from it, even if it's only in a very small way. But what if there will soon be no future generations? What if this is all there is? I know we think of all this civilization as enormous and indestructible but the Romans must have felt the same way, and the Egyptians. So, we can't easily be brought down by something like the Ottoman Turks but here is a new end. Dwindling populations inhabiting empty cities. Cleared areas going back to the jungle. The generations becoming smaller and smaller until there are finally not enough to sustain the species and then, the end. With a whimper" she ended on a dramatic note and turned to him with anxious eyes.

Edward didn't say anything immediately. "I know what you mean," he finally replied in a low voice. "I've been thinking about it on and off myself all day. It doesn't seem real but the way he presented it … it's very hard to deny the possibility. And what have I done? What is there that I can leave that is lasting? And the answer is, if not my genes then nothing."

"The thought that drives the IVF industry." Bella agreed. "It's amazing what people will do to reproduce their genes."

"It's a shame about your genes" he agreed. 'They're good ones. But my genes don't matter much. I never really wanted to pass on my untidy hair and my big head. But I agree it's a shame if there's no little version of you". He brushed a hand gently over her shoulder pushing her hair back for her. He looked at her intensely in a way she remembered. It was pleasant, it was familiar, it felt comfortable, and it was wrong. She didn't know what to say. She looked away deliberately, trying to break the moment. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

"Not very" he replied. "I don't really want to go out there. My face is still stinging and sore and my gut hurts as well. Let's get room service".

Bella agreed that this was a good idea. They lay on the bed, not touching and continued to flick between the news channels CNN, Fox, BBC World. All of them were running the story. The network ABC was advertising a special feature on 60 minutes for the weekend.

They had agreed that Bella would stay in the bedroom throughout although Bella argued that Edward was still a bit battered and if anything else happened she would not remain hidden. Edward couldn't really argue with her contention that he wasn't very good at physical confrontation. "I never thought I'd have to face down a bunch of hired thugs" he explained. "There aren't many punch ups in the laboratory. If I'd known I was going to run into you, and all the trouble it would cause me, I'd have been working out". "I'm so sorry" Bella said softly. Edward pulled a face. "I'm only joking," he said, "Really, I'm having the time of my life. Wouldn't miss it for the world. The worst thing is that I don't know whether I really won the poster prize or whether they rigged it to get me out of the way". Bella burst out laughing and then abruptly stopped as she considered the possibility that he might be right. "Oh my God" she said. "I would say 'no they wouldn't do that' but then I would also say that no drug company would do any of this so maybe... but I'm sure your poster was really worth it" she added hastily and unconvincingly. Edward stuck out his tongue at her. "Don't stick it out unless you're going to use it" she said which was something she remembered him saying to her years ago when they were going out. Edward roared with laughter to find her memory so accurate. "Oh, I'll use it" he said leaning forward. Bella felt a moment of tension that he was going to take her literally, run his tongue over skin. After all, it had been a provocative thing to say, she thought wildly. To her relief, though, he merely took up a chocolate from the minibar and licked at it ostentatiously. She smiled but at the same time, felt a contradictory twinge of disappointment.

When room service arrived, Edward opened the door with the chain still on. After verifying that it really was room service outside he undid the chain. As it turned out, S&D did not make a surprise attack over the room service delivery and Bella sheepishly put down the lampshade with which she was prepared to dash out and hit someone. Again she had the sense that everything that had happened was ridiculous. She came out quite meekly to eat her dinner. Over the cake and fruit platter dessert, she idly picked up the conference program which was lying on the desk next to where they were eating.

"Look" she said pulling a disgusted face. "Here's an abstract linking MSAS with low calcium, but look here over the page, here's an abstract linking it with high calcium intake! No-one's ever proven anything with dietary studies!"

"Except for folate and spina bifida" he reminded her quickly "And that's all about structural abnormalities too don't forget. As Chorley pointed out this morning".

Bella felt reproved. "Well, look at these" she continued going on to the next page "MSAS and exposure to mobile phone use: A self-report cohort study. MSAS and the use of epoxy floor resin? Oh come on! There are dozens of these! MSAS and 2,3 dioxide pesticides: a study of vegetable intake. These are all nuts! They're all going to be inconclusive and hopelessly confounded".

Looking at the program, Edward was forced to agree with her that the tomorrow's talks might have been diverse but they were also unlikely to reveal any dramatic insights. "Bells?" he asked putting the program down, "Why don't we skip tomorrow's lectures and get away somewhere instead?" Bella stared at him. "You know, that's a brilliant idea," she said. "I'm sick of the topic and I never want to see any of them again, especially Prof Gale. If I see him get up on the platform and make some kind of unctuous speech about the advancement of modern science, I'll throw up. And I'm sick of being bullied by S&D boot boys."

"Unfortunately, I've had about as much defending you as I can stand as well" said Edward, holding his abdomen and pulling a wry face. "No offense Bells, I mean obviously I'd defend you to the death but can I take a break for a bit?"

"My hero" Bella was only half joking. She was aware of a genuine sense of gratitude for the way he had come to her rescue, even if he hadn't actually ended up rescuing her. "Where will we go?"

Edward answered so readily, she wondered if he had been thinking about it for some time. "How 'bout Calistoga? Have a mud bath and a massage? If anyone could use a stress-relieving massage, I think it would be us, don't you?"

Bella regarded him fondly. "You know how much I like massages" she commented. Edward's grin widened. "Hell, yeah" he said.

Bella's grin mirrored his own. One of their favourite things to do when they were going out together was to massage each other with scented warm oils. Bella remembered that Edward had always seemed just as happy massaging her back as having his own massaged. One of the things he commented on was how much he liked to listen to her "oohing" and "aaaaahing" as her back was rubbed. Bella was one of those people who always seemed to have tight back muscles. She used to joke that it was the price of her large breasts and Edward, a self-described breast man used to say either, "Let me help you make that burden easier" or "I can massage them too" which used to make her laugh. Edward always seemed happy to spend hours doing things like that but then again, they had had hours to spend. They were both studying, so late hours and sleep-ins were a normal part of life. Good days, she thought nostalgically.

"How do we get there?" she asked. "We'll have to borrow a car" he replied. "I've got a couple of friends in these parts. Friends from University. We go way back. I'm sure Emmett'd lend me a car for the day. He's a fitness freak anyway, he rides his bike to work all the time". He got out his phone and began flicking through his contacts. "He rides a bike in San Francisco?" Bella asked with exaggerated doubt. "He can't live near any hills". Edward was already on the phone and he put a finger up to his lips to silence her. "Emmett, man, it's Edward, how you been?"

Edward went off into an extended chat with his college friend while Bella lay back on the couch and twirled her hair around her fingers listening to the conversation. From Edward's end of the phone she could tell they talked a bit about themselves and a bit of gossip and then spent a while talking about Grid Iron, not a sport she ever thought Edward was really interested in. She was surprised how much he seemed to know about it and especially how many recent results he seemed to have on instant recall. Eventually she heard him get round to asking about the car, without saying much, he said that he was here on a conference and that for a number of reasons he needed to go somewhere out of town the next day and would he be able to borrow the car? The other end of the phone didn't seem to raise any drastic objections and then they were discussing how to pick up the car. Bella stopped listening for a while, closed her eyes and sank gratefully into the couch. She felt the stress ease already like a great tight knot in her shoulders was releasing. A day out with Edward, which would have sounded like a bad idea before she came on this trip, now sounded fantastic.

Edward got off the phone. "Good old Emmett" he said jubilantly. "I knew he'd come through. We'll have to go and pick up the car in the morning and drop him and his bike off at work but that'll be alright".

"Do you know how to get to this place?" she asked doubtfully but Edward had that all in hand. "He'll lend us the satnav as well. Say, where's that 'what's on' thing that was wandering around in here? They might have something about it".

Bella had never heard of Calistoga but it was listed in the 'guide to local activities' in their room. They rang a place enquiring about massage treatments. It was not yet the peak tourist season so it seemed that there were still plenty of times left available. Edward didn't leave his name.

After making some plans and looking at some maps in the various guidebooks available in the hotel room, Edward announced that being beaten up made him tired and that he needed to go to bed. Bella agreed at once. Edward got into bed almost immediately but when she had finished with her usual bedtime routine she found that he was still awake, evidently waiting for her. When she climbed into bed, he held out his arms and embraced her in the dark. Without any thought on her part, she found herself kissing him, giving in to his evident pleasure in capturing her lips, then releasing them only to find them again. Bella closed her eyes and gave in to the sensation of being so completely wanted until she found herself mildly distracted by the thought that she hadn't sent her husband an SMS tonight. Edward didn't seem to notice. "Bells" he said huskily pulling on her pyjama top. "I think you should lose the shirt".

The thoughts of Jacob and the reality of Edward here, next to her, taking her clothes off, with his beautiful body and seductive touches were too much for her. "No" she said. "Not tonight. Not now." To her relief, he didn't protest or persist. "Tomorrow" she whispered breathing heavily, rolling over to the other side of the bed. "Tomorrow is our escape day".


	11. Chapter 12

**A/N: I apologise in advance, I am not a natural lemon writer.**

**The use of the c-word was a considered one, it has been in use since the 13th century and derives from middle english**.

**This story now comes to you with extra shimmer, thanks to KeeWit!**

When they got up in the morning Bella noticed the weather for the first time. The sky was beautiful clear blue. She was relieved that Edward said nothing about the night before. They got dressed, dancing around each other, Bella highly aware every time she brushed Edward's arm in passing or when he touched her waist as he asked if she were ready to go. She could feel her mood lightening at the thought of escape and she became aware that she was smiling constantly, her smile reflected in Edward's face. The relief of getting away from the madness was enormous. Edward's friend Emmett was waiting in his car in the hotel garage just after eight o'clock. He turned out to be just as tall as Edward but about three times as heavy. He was obviously very good-natured and happily chatted with them both for a few minutes. Edward introduced Bella but didn't name any relationship between them and she thought that some of the looks his friend gave her were a little speculative but he said nothing and all three parted cheerfully. Edward promised to pick him up after work and drive him home and also to look after the car.

The car turned out to be a Mini Coupe. Bella gaped when she saw it and laughed hysterically at the sight of six foot two Edward folding himself apparently double to fit behind the steering wheel. She also pointed out that a bright red mini with racing stripes was hardly the perfect car in which to escape incognito. She half-seriously suggested that they go back and hire a black Mercedes but Edward set off in the car with evident enjoyment. "Come on" he said "You only live once and potentially we'll all be wiped out in the next couple of generations anyway". "Thanks for reminding me" she ground out giving him a grim look. He smiled guiltily. "You're right. No horrible realities today" he said in great good humour. "Escape!"

They drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, admiring the view. The sky was a brilliant blue with none of the usual early morning fog. They experimented with the different voices of the satellite navigator until they settled for the soothing female British one. After a while, a silence fell. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her. "I was thinking of that time we drove from Chicago to New Orleans" she answered, startled out of her train of thought. "Remember how once we got past Illinois the radio could only find country and western?" Edward grinned. "That was a great trip" he commented "Although the only day with really nice weather, you were too hungover to go out. Unbelievable." Bella blushed and fell silent again. That was the trouble with people who knew you really well she thought, they remembered some things that you would rather forget. Once they settled into the highway driving, a silence fell until Bella noticed Edward peering into the rear view mirror. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Checking your hair?" Edward gave her a disgusted look. His messy hair was a sore point with him and had been ever since she had known him. "No, I'm trying to see if anyone is following us" he replied.

That brought her back from her reminiscence with a jolt. Immediately she began looking in her side mirror as well, trying to watch the cars weaving in and out of the traffic. "Do you think they would follow us?" she asked anxiously. "I don't know," he admitted. "There doesn't seem a lot of point, I have to say. On the other hand if a few days ago, you had said you would be personally threatened by a large and powerful drug company over the public presentation of some very preliminary epidemiological data about the pill what would you have said?"

The look she gave him was eloquent.

Bella gradually forgot to watch for tailing S&D men and merely watched out the window for a while. She had taken a number of driving trips around the US and she knew from experience that the views from the interstate highways were usually not the best. After leaving the Bay and the waterside the scenery turned into urban grimness. A burnt-out car by the side of the road and that peculiarly American streetscape of bare, concrete footpaths and stark electrical wiring began to sink her mood back toward one of doom. Bella had a cousin who had completed a PhD entitled "The Ecology of Roadside Environments", something she had poked fun about at the time, but it came back to haunt her every trip to the US when she saw their reluctance to spend taxpayer money on public spaces. This the US, was the great urban nation and like the rusting remnant of the car they just passed it seemed to be showing its cracks. They continued driving north on interstate 101 while she was thinking these thoughts, but soon after, they came off the highway at the polite request of the satellite navigator.

"Did you ever read that book, what was it called, something like 'the truth about drug companies'?" asked Edward suddenly.

Bella was again surprised out of some memories. "No" she replied. "What about it?"

"It was written by the editor of the Lancet or Nature or something. One of those big journals. Anyway it's a complete demolition job on the drug companies. I don't think he's going to be getting any free handouts from them in the near future".

Bella sat up, interested. "What does he say?" she asked.

"Well, he talks about how the drug companies always claim that it costs them a fortune to research and develop new drugs but that really, most of the research is done by basic researchers on some kind of grants. The drug companies all just come along and take the results for development into a new product."

"Hmmmmmm" said Bella. "That's probably true."

"And he also says that most of the drug companies' R&D is either spent on marketing or on producing new versions of an older drug, you know to try and make a longer half-life or something or else they just do some kind of trial of a drug for a new indication. Like when a drug has a side effect so that market it to utilize that side effect. Say a drug for depression also happened to cause appetite suppression –"

"That's not very likely" interrupted Bella. "Most of the anti-depressants cause weight gain for some reason. So you feel better about life until you realise that now you have a genuine problem – obesity".

Edward grinned. "Remember my Dad's favourite joke? The world's worst compliment? For a fat lady you don't sweat much?"

Bella pulled a twisted grin and nodded. She had a sudden feeling that today was going to be full of these remembered moments and they were making her feel terribly nostalgic, not just for their relationship but for her student days, being young, no cares, no worries, certain that everything was for a reason and that everything would turn out well.

"Anyhow, suppose, just suppose, an antidepressant did cause appetite suppression. Well, then the drug company might market it as a weight loss drug. And that would count as a new drug, so they would then claim the research and development costs which are tax deductible although all they've done is exploit an aspect of a previously developed drug".

"Weight loss must be particularly lucrative," mused Bella.

"He also talks about all the dirty tricks they play, bribes and so forth. And rigging test results for new drugs. I remember being totally shocked when I read it."

"Nothing I read about drug companies now could shock me," said Bella grimly. I think we've seen the lowest humanity can reach".

Edward sighed. "Oh well, according to Chorley we're going to disappear over just a few generations" he reminded her. "And despite the drug companies I can still find it in myself to regret it".

They came to a T intersection and turned left. Edward pointed out the Petrified forest on his side, mostly consisting of pleasant woods and lots of signs advertising the three million year old giant redwood trees turned to stone after being buried in ash.

"Over three million years old!" Bella read off one billboard. "3 million years – is that the Pleistocene or the Pliocene?" she asked.

"Don't ask me!" exclaimed Edward. Bella pursued her train of thought. "How old is homo sapiens anyway? A million years?" "Naw!" exclaimed Edward. "Nothing like! I think it's more like a hundred thousand years. Neanderthals only became extinct 40, 000 years ago. I saw it on the Discovery channel". "And civilization?" Edward shrugged impatiently. "I don't know. Aren't the Jews up to the year 6000 or something? So, what about maybe 10,000? 20,000? I don't know. What's your point?"

Bella was silent for a few moments. She was full of sadness. "All soon to disappear as if it never was. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise? Zen koans, all of man's achievements, if there are no more men to see them or hear about them did they ever exist?"

Edward sighed again. "When all is futile and nothing is worth anything what is there left?" he asked. Bella looked at him with apprehension. She had been fighting this nihilistic feeling intermittently all morning. "I don't know," she said softly.

"Hedonism!" announced Edward emphatically making her laugh as he winked at her. "And here we are at the place for pleasuring the senses and to hell with the mind – the Napa Valley" he announced dramatically.

He was right about one thing. The view of the Valley spread out in front of them was fabulous as the descended down to the Valley floor. "Yes!" she agreed. "Time for straight indulgence of the senses. Never mind tomorrow and who cares about the next generation, there might not be one!"

They drove for about another minute and then turned left to Calistoga.

In Calistoga they found the Spa centre they had rung the night before. Despite it being a Saturday, they managed to organize a shared mud bath and massage session. "What's the mud bath like?" asked Bella. Edward gave her a strange look and said "It's a mud bath, what do you think it's like?" They were shown into a room with a large pool in the corner. Bella went to look at it and recoiled. "It's mud!" she exclaimed frantically. "What did you expect to find at a mud bath?" asked Edward. "I don't know, I thought they just rubbed it on you, you know like a mud pack at a facial" she said and pulled a face. "I really don't know if I'm going to like this". Edward rolled his eyes at her.

A cheerful spa guide came back and showed them lockers with robes hanging in them. "Take your things off and get into the mud," she instructed "And I'll be back in a minute".

Bella hung back a bit by the locker door slowly and somewhat reluctantly removing her clothes. Edward had his pants and t-shirt off in about 5 seconds and without displaying any embarrassment walked naked across the room to the mud pool and climbed in making strange plopping noises as he did. Blushing at the sight of Edward naked and cursing herself for being slow Bella now realised that she would have to take her clothes off while Edward watched and then walk naked across the room to the pool. It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other naked thousands of times before but that was seven years ago. Mentally, Bella contemplated any changes that her body might display and grimaced at the tally. Most of the changes involved the gain of just a little bit of fat in various strategic spots, but the thought was still unpleasant.

"Don't look" she called out but then she saw the warning was unnecessary. He was lying in the mud up to his chin and looking at the ceiling. "Hurry up" he said. "Close your eyes" she called. He groaned but did as she requested only looking up when he heard her spontaneous exclamation "Eeeeew, yuck!"

Bella had never been keen on getting dirty even as a child. She never even played mud pies. Getting into the mud had been like that moment of putting hands into dough for mixing, awful, until you get used to the feeling of the slippery stuff. Then she lay back and discovered that the mud was quite buoyant and very warm. Somehow it seemed to retain the heat and to be getting hotter.

The spa attendant came back in and asked if they wanted the mud packed up to their faces. (Edward did, Bella didn't). She also turned off the water supply to what appeared to be a garden hose snaking over the side of the tub that Bella had failed to notice earlier. This was apparently filling the tub with hot water. No wonder it felt like it was getting hotter, Bella thought ruefully.

"I'll be back in half an hour," said the spa attendant "Enjoy it!"

Edward appeared to genuinely like the mud bath. He lay back, closing his eyes and floating. "That feels fabulous!" he said "So warm!" Bella was unconvinced. "It's a bit too hot for me" she said glumly. "And it smells funny". "What do you expect, it's mud!" exclaimed Edward. He took a hand out and shook the mud off; a tiny splash landed on Bella's face. "Watch it!" she yelled. "I specifically didn't want the face pack you know".

Bella was privately glad when the attendant came back and explained that for the next part of their Calistoga experience they were suppose to shower off the mud under a couple of shower heads on the far wall, towel themselves off and put on the robes provided, then their massage therapists would come in when they were ready. She was so keen to get out she leapt straight out of the mud in front of Edward without even considering it. She ran for the shower and felt the warm stream of clear water pour over her with relief. She kept her head facing to the wall but couldn't help noticing that Edward hadn't yet joined her. This was something of a relief in one way although her worst fears were realised when she turned around to find that he hadn't got out of the mud yet but was merely lounging on his stomach, his arms over the edge, watching her. "Nice shower?" he called out to her. She turned to the wall again at once. "Don't you want one" she called back over her shoulder. She didn't hear a reply. Feeling clean again, she turned the water off and snatched up a nearby towel. She wrapped this quickly around her and turned back to him. "Now I'm at least decent," she said. "Very decent" he agreed leering, making her pull a face at him.

He got out of the mud eventually and into the shower apparently without any reserve but then she couldn't help noticing that he didn't seem to have changed much at all. She tried to busy herself drying and quickly put on one of the robes but she couldn't help sneaking glances at Edward under the water out of the corner of her eye. His body appeared nicely toned, just as she remembered. She found herself admiring his broad shoulders, his muscled torso and then her eye was drawn irresistibly to the bulge of his cock which she couldn't quite see through the water. Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes and concentrated on trying to tie the belt of her robe. The white cotton was entirely shapeless and so large that it swathed her down to her feet. Much better, she thought and mentally castigated herself for agreeing to this; she hadn't thought somehow that a day at a mud spa would involve so much shared nudity.

The massage therapists came in. They were led to another room with two tables set up a short distance from each other. Strangely, hers was male and Edward's female, blonde, athletic, very attractive she couldn't help noticing. She felt a twinge of jealousy at the look on the woman's face at the sight of Edward and while her massage therapist introduced himself her attention was focused on the easy rapport that Edward struck with his masseur. Once they started however, she found that her massage therapist was very good. He exclaimed over the horrible knots of tension in her back, neck and shoulders and proceeded to pummel and work at each one until it disappeared in a haze of blissful sensation. Her only criticism was that her therapist liked to keep up a stream of steady chatter that she found distracting. At one point she emerged from a burst of massage endorphins to discover that he was talking about his pet snakes. She tried to change the subject. It was difficult to concentrate on any kind of conversation though, especially when she kept stopping to make appreciative 'aaah' noises. Edward's massage appeared to be conducted in silence and she wondered if he were listening to hers.

Afterwards her masseur indicated an ensuite shower and she gratefully shut the door and turned on the water supply to the huge, raindrop style showerhead. The shelf in the shower was filled with interesting things like herbal hair infusions. Bella stood under the warm water turning herself this way and that, very aware of her body after the morning of pampering. She thought of the look in Edward's eyes as he watched her under the shower and felt warmer still. Trying to distract herself, she opened a bottle of shower gel. The smell was redolent of chamomile and citrus, Bella thought it smelled delicious. She smoothed the gel over her shoulders and down her arms thinking of Edward touching her. Without conscious thought, her hands drifted across her flat abdomen to her breasts, which she cupped and squeezed. She turned her head under the spray and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, Edward was there, naked, in the shower with her, his arms closing around her as he pushed her gently against the shower wall, his hands taking the place of hers around her breasts and his mouth on hers. Bella pushed away her thoughts and allowed herself to just give in to the sensation. She kissed him back deeply, enjoying the feel of his warm lips on hers as if it were something she had been missing without realizing it. His hands stroked her breasts gently and his kisses moved to the corner of her mouth, to her earlobe and began a track down her neck. By the time his lips reached her nipple she was arching her back, pushing her tits out in front of her, begging for his attention. He sucked gently and then as he let go she felt the slightest sharpness of his teeth, which made her gasp. His fingers slid between the lips of her cunt and she reached out blindly to feel his hard cock, gratified by his moans in her ear as she slid her hands over it. He leaned against her up against the tiled wall and pulled her leg over his hip. She thought briefly about safe sex and condoms but the hadn't used them before when they were going out and was completely distracted from unpleasant thoughts about the possible HPV profile of his current girlfriend by the feeling of him sliding into her. She couldn't help the low groan that escaped her echoed back by Edward's own moans. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this aroused, or the last time she'd had sex anywhere except in bed. Edward took her weight entirely, her buttocks in his hands and thrusting firmly into her. She came suddenly, shaking, groaning and feeling her pelvic muscles spasm and Edward came soon after, gasping and groaning. They slid down the wall rather gracelessly and he held her on his lap on the floor of the shower, her legs wrapped around his hips as the kissed in the warm spray.

After holding each other for ages, Edward eventually got up and supported her against him, making her laugh by offering to wash her breasts. He finished in the shower long before she did, and kissing her told her he would see her outside. Bella finished washing herself feeling relaxed and happy except when she thought briefly of Jacob. She quickly pushed the thought of him away, refusing guilt and the accusations she saw in her mental image. By the time Bella had mostly dried her longish straight hair with the indifferent hairdryer, it was late morning. Bella came out to find Edward waiting patiently and reading a magazine about naturopathy. She wondered guiltily how long she'd been but he showed no sign of impatience merely jumping up and asking her if she had "permed her ears" which she recognized as a quote from 'Fawlty Towers'. After Bella had paid for her spa (she was secretly relieved to discover that Edward's chivalry hadn't gone that far), they emerged from the building glowing with health, well-being, and the remains of herbal infused oils.


	12. Chapter 13

"What will we do now?" asked Bella. Edward didn't answer immediately but wandered down the street a bit. "Let's just have a look at these little shops," he suggested. "They're too cute for anything".

Bella admitted that she was happy for some retail therapy so they spent a pleasant half hour wandering in and out of shops selling soaps, shoes and miscellaneous handicrafts. One of the nicest things about Edward, she reflected, had been the way he was willing to enter into her enthusiasm for shopping in all its forms; dedicated shopping trips where he happily waited around to give her the benefit of his opinion, or meandering window shopping like today, where he examined incense sticks and handmade potholders with the same degree of interest that he might bring to a new paper about orphan nuclear receptors. Bella's mood continued to lift. Hedonism had been very successful.

By the time they had walked the length of the street of shops, they were feeling hungry, so they packed into the car and drove to one of the nearby wineries. They selected a bottle of sparkling wine and a huge antipasto platter and settled down at an outdoor table in an idyllic setting, the vines in the background, clear blue sky and pale sunshine, warm but not hot. The wine was pale yellow and crisp to taste with dry bubbles that melted on the tongue. Bella felt herself relaxing. Nothing was going to happen to her here and San Francisco and tomorrow's conference were both a long way off.

"Have I thanked you yet for all this?" she asked. "Yes" he said immediately, winking at her, "But you can thank me again, I don't mind". He was grinning but she was trying to be serious. "I mean it," she said.

He leaned forward across the table. "So," he began, "Tell me about your husband. How's marriage treating you?"

His voice was bluff and hearty. Bella was shocked by the abrupt change of conversation but recognised that they could not go on ignoring it. She sat back again and looked away, considering. What could she say?"

"It's good," she said finally aware that this was an inadequate response but unable to offer more. "I mean we fight sometimes, sometimes he drives me crazy and I have to admit that I had to get used to him just being around all the time, if you know what I mean. His singing drives me nuts, it's so bad and his taste in music is even worse than his singing but despite all that we usually get on together pretty well."

"Do you love him?" he asked. His voice was low and after he said it, he looked down at the table carefully. "Well, of course I love him" she replied matter of factly "But it's different I suppose after you've been married for a while. You get used to the other person I think. Perhaps you take them for granted a little".

"I never took you for granted" he said softly. Their eyes met. Bella looked away first.

"No, but look you wanted to further your career and you were willing to give me up for it" she pointed out. "And you weren't willing to move to the US, even to be with me" he replied. Bella sighed. "I just thought that one day we would be having an argument, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from saying 'look at all the things I've done for you, moved to the other side of the world, left my parents, my friends, my home' etc etc. And I think that would get old rather quickly, don't you? I thought it was too much pressure on the relationship. I thought there would be problems" she fell silent.

"Well, we'll never know" he said.

"How about you? What's this girlfriend like who you've been so mysterious about? How long have you been going out? Tell all!" she ordered. "Why didn't you say anything at first?" He shrugged. "The right time hadn't really presented itself" he protested. He appeared to sink into a reverie, making Bella impatient. "Well?" she prompted.

"Well, she's a lab assistant but not in my lab and her name is Tanyah" he shot Bella a glance, knowing that she would be unimpressed with this. As he expected she had pulled a wry face. "She's great. Really fun, nice personality, all round nice girl". Bella nodded, thinking that there was not much to say to that. She thought it was a bit lacking in enthusiasm but then what was she expecting, that he would say he was madly in love? Had she said that about her husband? Maybe he was concerned about hurting her feelings, she reasoned, although why it should hurt her feelings was a thought that she didn't want to have.

"That's great" she enthused. "I'm happy for you!" she schooled her expression to reflect only cheerfulness and grinned at him.

He seemed thoughtful. "Are you?" he asked.

"Yes" she affirmed. "Why wouldn't I be?" she wished she hadn't asked him that. She found that she didn't want him to answer.

He didn't.

"I can't believe you didn't mention your girlfriend!" she exclaimed again, more to break the silence than anything else.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

There was a beautiful, manicured garden in front of the winery. They wandered along a sandy path. Bella was feeling just slightly fuzzy from the wine they had drunk with lunch. She stepped awkwardly on a rock in the path and lurched against Edward's shoulder. She felt the contact but he didn't put his arm around her as she half expected. They came to a small pond surrounded by large trees. Under one of the trees was a slatted garden seat.

"Let's have rest," said Edward, taking her hand and directing her towards it. They sat down next to each other, Bella hardly noticing that Edward kept his arm along the back of the seat. There was a few moments' silence broken only by birds and the distant sounds of people eating at the outside tables at the winery.

"What –" Bella turned to ask Edward a question and was startled to find herself swept into his arms. Her kissed her gently and sweetly with a tenderness that she had forgotten but which was characteristic of him. She had no ability to resist. The kiss deepened, she was greedy for more, open-mouthed, exploring his lips with her tongue.

Edward, she remembered, was an exceptionally sensual man. One of his best points in her opinion was the way in which he seemed to genuinely enjoy every touch for its own sake, not just as an exercise or a prelude to other things. Perhaps as a result, he was an exquisite judge of touch, his caresses were always perfect, gentle but demanding, just like his current stroking of her shoulders. He understood how to start with the subtle gestures and when to move on to the more obviously sexual ones. He had a great sense of timing so that things always built at the right pace. It seemed he could sense when she was and was not ready to move on.

He stroked her cheek and his fingers travelled lightly down her neck and over her shoulders. She murmured her appreciation of his touch. Putting her arms around his neck she kissed him very lightly, a bare brushing of her lips against his. He moaned slightly and curved his hands around the tops of her arms to bring her closer to him and deepen their kiss, but she pulled away whenever he got close, only to go back to those light, teasing lip touches. He growled in frustration, making her laugh. She relented, kissing him gently on his cheek, his forehead, his eyelid. He started to do some gentle exploration of his own, kissing her gently behind her ear and in a trail leading down her neck. He continued in a trail down into her cleavage. She thought he could read her mind because he judged exactly the moment when she wanted her breasts to be stroked although it may also have had something to do with the way she arched her back, lifting her breasts toward his face. He peeled down her top and pulled back her bra slightly to gently suck on her nipple.

She moaned slightly lost to all but the sensation of touch and arousal until suddenly she heard a number of voices and the scrunch of feet on the pathway. Instinctively she pulled away but Edward only held her tighter. They didn't look up until the walkers had passed them by, but she had the impression that they were elderly and that their voices were excessively loud in order to disguise their embarrassment. Or maybe the embarrassment was all hers.

Becoming aware of herself and her surroundings all of a sudden, she discovered that somehow she was seated on Edward's lap with her legs spread out to either side balancing on her knees on the bench. Embarrassed, she climbed off him to sit demurely on one side. "Perhaps we should calm it down a bit" she suggested. "Or next thing we'll be having sex on a public bench!" she laughed.

"Wouldn't be the first time" he reminded her. She blushed. She had forgotten that episode in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens on a very warm night in January. "Do you remember that?" she asked, cringing. He was laughing. "Are you kidding? That is one of my fondest memories! You pushed me down on the bench and jumped on top of me and you were so hot and wet…"

Bella interrupted him, screwing her eyes shut against the embarrassment caused by his reminiscence. "Well we had been walking around with you kind of teasing me for about an hour!" Suddenly, she was seized by a burst of laughter. "I can't be sure but I think someone walked past us" she said. "I think I remember someone making surprised coughing noises at some point". Edward nodded. "Yep, a couple of people came past but it didn't seem to bother you".

Bella put her head on his shoulder. His arm came naturally around her and they sat in silence for a while, enjoying the closeness.

"What happened Bella?" he said softly after a few minutes. "Why did we let this go?"

She sighed. "I bet you none of those people who passed could begin to guess our story," she said. "You know, I mean what we are to each other and what brought us here". "You got that right," he agreed feelingly. Maybe we could start again," she suggested. "Some sort of alternative lives where we could be together. You know, maybe another time I'll choose to be a children's book author or something and after all, you can write anywhere, right?"

Edward grinned and entered the spirit of the game. "Instead of biological sciences I'll go back to Uni, retrain in IT. I've always been interested in computer systems. You can get IT jobs anywhere." "I'll go back to Uni and study literature, or maybe creative writing or even my first academic love". "What was that?" wondered Edward. "Archaeology" she announced triumphantly. "You didn't know that did you? See, you don't know everything about me".

Edward kissed her again, bending her back against the seat then abruptly released her. "I know the important things," he said softly.

The sun appeared to have past its peak and Bella was struck by the feeling that the day was passing. "Come on" she said "We'd better go. I just had a thought. Today was supposed to be given over to mindless hedonism and it wouldn't be a totally hedonistic day without shopping! Didn't we see an outlet mall not that far from here? Come on, let's do thoughtless excessive consumerism just to make the day complete. Please?" she ended on a pleading note.

"Right" agreed Edward good naturedly rising from the seat and heading back to the car.

They climbed into their mini and got back on the highway. Not far away they had passed a large outlet mall which Bella had commented on ("Oooh, Banana Rebublic! Ann Taylor Loft! Emporio Armani!") They parked the car and Bella led the way to the shops with a purposeful air. She plunged into the shopping strip starting at one end. Cheerfully she rummaged through the stacks, selected armfuls of clothes and headed to the change rooms, sending Edward out for changes of colour or size.

Her bargain hunting was not as successful as she hoped and after about half a dozen shops she had only one top and a dress to show for it. Also, her midday jet lag was beginning to settle in and everything began to look unreal to her. Then they came across an internet café.

"Let's have a cup of coffee," she suggested. "Honestly, I don't know whether it's the lag or not but I'm feeling dead." As usual Edward agreed.

Bella ordered a tall latte and eyed the internet charges. As expected, they were exorbitantly high but the temptation was too much. "I think I'll just log on and check my e-mail," she said. Edward pulled a face at the charges. "We could have gone to a Starbucks and got free WiFi!" he commented. Bella looked rueful. "I could use my phone," she said pulling out her Nokia, "But checking my e-mail on it takes ages and typing anything is worse". Edward frowned "Why don't you get an iPhone?" he asked, pulling his out of his pocket.

"Because the camera's crap, I don't really like touchscreens and most of all because iPhone users are so bloody sanctimonious about them! 'Oh you really must get an iPhone' they say at every possible opportunity. And they think they're so cool. Well, I don't actually need something that makes noises like a lightsabre duel and I don't bloody want one! Aaaagh!" she finished emphatically. "Jacob has an iPhone," she added inconsequentially.

As she had hoped, that was enough to make the subject drop. She went to one of the desktops, bought some credit and logged in. Immediately she went to one of the web based e-mail programs and checked her e-mail.

Her inbox was full and over half of them appeared to be increasingly distressed messages from her husband, Jacob. They started with titles like "Your conference on the news" and then went on to "Possible skype time?" The last two had subject lines "WHERE ARE YOU?" and "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" Guiltily, she realised that she had not replied to the text message she had received a couple of hours earlier. She quickly hit reply and started to apologise and explain. It was early in the morning at home in Melbourne, she realised and he must have been awake at 5 o'clock in the morning, worrying about her. Tears came to her eyes as she considered her selfishness. She dug her phone out of her bag and sent an SMS "Sorry it's taken so long to reply, on silent still, all well, sending e-mail to explain all".

Having written that in her text however, she did not find it so easy to "explain all". She couldn't bring herself to write about her experiences of being harassed and blackmailed. He would think she was hallucinating. Nor did she particularly want to mention Edward, as she knew that Jacob had a noticeable antipathy to all her ex-boyfriends, especially the ones she remained friends with. Any discussion involving her ex-boyfriend's doings was likely to be greeted with silence, as she knew from long experience. At length, she settled for telling him that her laptop had disappeared at the conference, but that she still had some hopes of it being returned. She wouldn't be able to skype him but she would try to keep in touch by e-mailing at internet cafes. She promised not to ignore her texts. In the meantime an SMS reply "Thank god you're all right. I was beginning to wonder!" added more fuel for guilt.

Quickly she scanned down her other e-mails, most of which were routine sort of work things that could wait until later. One untitled message caught her eye from Prof Volturi. "What does he want?" she wondered. She opened the message which had been sent the day before, the first day she arrived in San Francisco.

"Dear Bella, I hope you will consider the recommendations I made to you regarding your presentation during our brief meeting yesterday" it ran. "If you have any trouble you may find that I can be of help. Don't hesitate to ask me. Cheers, Aro Volturi"

Bella sat back in her chair after reading this e-mail and stared at the screen. Her first thought was that it was nice of him to offer his support but as she reread the message there was something about it that puzzled her. She wasn't surprised that he reminded her of his suggested changes, after all she was still slightly astonished at her own temerity in refusing to make the changes that he suggested. But why should he think she would have "trouble"? And how could he be of help?

She wondered, she doubted, she thought she was just being paranoid. Then all at once she remembered something. Prof Volturi was terribly busy, always involved in clinical trials of various new therapeutic drugs. Someone had told her once that really he had a conflict of interest and that he should actually declare it in any publication but that he didn't always do so. Something about a drug company.

Thinking fast, Bella went to the Google box in the toolbar. "Professor Aro Volturi" she typed "AND drug company". She hit the search key, briefly distracted by wondering for the ninetieth time whether anyone ever used the 'I'm feeling lucky button' and what it actually did. She came up with a worrying 3,610,000 hits and started to sift her way through them, after turning off the surf canyon option.

Half way down the second page, she found what she was looking for. A web page showing photos and brief biographies included the smiling face of her Professor. Then she clicked on the "Home" tab to show her the name of the company which listed Professor Aro Volturi on its board of directors. When the page came up she gave a sharp intake of breath. It was the homepage of Sprague and Dowley.


	13. Chapter 14

"Edward" she said urgently but softly, casting anxious glances around the café. All her paranoia had returned in a rush now that this link had been made. "Edward!" she said again. "It's him. He was the one who told them what was in my results. He knew what was going to happen to me. He pEdwardably organized it! I don't believe it!"

Edward looked up from where he had been drinking a frappe and reading Sports Illustrated. He appeared confused by her sudden attempt at revelation. "What?" he asked.

"Before I left home, I had a meeting with my Professor. It wasn't a scheduled meeting, he asked me in specifically. He wanted me to show him my presentation for the conference. I thought he was just being kind, not wanting me to stuff up or anything, you know. I showed him my slides and he advised me to remove the oral contraceptive data. He said he 'didn't think my conclusions were justified'".

"He wanted you to remove the data, just like S&D?" Edward asked slowly, trying to get everything clear.

"Yes!" she said. "I argued my point of view, said I would certainly point out the limitations of the study, that sort of thing, but he still wasn't happy. After I left him I stopped off to put my timeslip into admin. On the way out, he passed me in the carpark, in the Aston Martin. He went off somewhere in a hurry. Now that I think about it, he is on the Board of Directors for Sprague and Dowley! Someone mentioned to me once before how they think that an academic can't really reconcile the two roles without compromising something. Now I think I know what they mean!"

"But how did he know about your study? Or was he just checking out of paranoia?" asked Edward. Bella stared at the screen. There was something else she was trying to remember. "His last e-mail" she said slowly, trying to reason it all out. "Steve Parris, the biostatistician who helped me with the stats. His last e-mail is here somewhere" she started scrolling through her inbox. "In it he said, he said, here it is!" She opened the e-mail and read with a sharp gasp "Certainly Prof Volturi seems to think so!" She turned to Edward. "That's it! The proof. Prof Volturi knew because he spoke to Steve". She was still thinking furiously. "I don't know whether he did it deliberately or whether he just ran into him. They know each other, they're colleagues. It could have been an accident but Steve definitely states in the e-mail that Aro made a comment about the study. Prof knew the results before he saw me and yet he didn't tell me that. I think it's clear. He did it. He's behind all of this. I can't believe it" and she sat back in her chair, limp, wondering, staring at Edward with her mouth open.

Edward was startled. "Really? Your professor is behind this? He could lose his chair." "I know! If I told the University about what he has done…" Bella shook her head in disbelief. "I'm not going to let him get away with this," she said suddenly. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to fight him. To hell with it. I've been thinking that my species is dying out and in light of that, what does my stupid talk really matter, but now I think that is the wrong attitude. I think if my species is ending then to hell with it, my career doesn't matter any more. I will get up there and give my talk and then let them do their worst. My gesture. My last grand gesture. To the truth, to honesty, to all the things that were the best about homo sapiens before it developed a fatal reproductive error. I will go down fighting!" She pulled a mock heroic attitude and looked around expecting to see Edward laughing at her. To her surprise, he appeared very serious.

"Ah" he said. "You're going to get up and give your talk. Well fine. But how are you going to get in there?"

Bella's mood, which had been carried away with her defiant speech quickly lowered. "How am I going to get in there?" she repeated obviously at a loss. "Yes" said Edward patiently. "You told me yourself that the President of the society told you that he wouldn't allow you in the room. There's bound to be security. How are you going to get in there?"

Bella's defiance ebbed quickly. He was right. No doubt there would be security on the doors to the lecture room. How could she get past them?

"They wouldn't know who I was," she said slowly, thinking it all out. "If I'm not wearing my badge maybe they'll just let me through".

"I wouldn't count on it" Edward replied grimly. "But yes, you could try. You could make yourself a fake name badge or we could alter the name on your real one. But nobody ever looks at your badge at the lectures. It's only at the trade displays that they usually check".

"That's the usual thing" she agreed "But I have a feeling that tomorrow might be different. But yes, that's a good idea, how could I make a fake badge?"

Edward hesitated. "Well, we could try to find someone with a decent colour printer and then just photoshop it" he suggested. "Where's a badge? Have you got one with you? Let's have a look at it". Bella scrabbled around in her handbag until she realised that she had left it in the hotel room with the conference bag. "It's in the room," she said "but I think it was just blue logo with black writing. I think it was pretty simple".

Edward frowned, considering. "But you'd have to get your presentation in there" he objected. "You know how normally you go to the speaker ready room before your timeslot and you load your powerpoint presentation on to the audiovisual people's computer and then they automatically put it up at the time of the presentation. You don't have any access to the computer attached to the projector. So how are you going to get past them?"

Bella squinted her eyes in an effort to remember. "Was there a computer at the front podium there or was it just a lectern?" she asked. "If there is a computer, I can just load it up regardless of whether the audiovisual people help or not".

"But it might not be connected" argued Edward. Bella turned on him. "Are you with me or against me?" she asked. "Come on, go with me here. I'm going to need your help". Her face softened. "Although not at the time. Promise me that. I'll have to send you to the talks without me whatever strategy I decide to use. You'll have to completely separate yourself from me. You've done enough for me as it is".

Edward looked at her helplessly. "I suppose I can't change your mind about this," he said. She shook her head. "Alright" he said with a resigned sigh. "How are we going to get you passed the presumed security and into the presentation?"

"I think the fake badge is a good idea," said Bella quickly. "But just in case it fails, what's my back-up plan?"

Edward considered. "Well, you could try going there tonight and hiding in the room. I don't know where you'd hide but it is one solution".

"Mmmm" Bella mused about this idea. "But what if I wanted to go to the toilet?" she pointed out. "And after staying there all night I'd be absolutely exhausted in the morning. I doubt that I'd be in any state to do my talk. I'd probably look a fright! I wouldn't be able to do my hair or anything!"

Edward rolled his eyes. "Well you just said you wanted to get in there," he said "Not that you wanted to get in there looking gorgeous!"

"I've got fat chance of looking gorgeous, no matter what," she returned with a grin "But that doesn't mean that I like the thought of presenting to a distinguished international audience looking like an absolute slob!"

"I think you look gorgeous," said Edward unexpectedly. "Thanks" she said "But you're biased" "True" he conceded. "Only where you are concerned". Bella gave him a pat on the shoulder. "But anyway to return to the problem, how am I going to get in there?"

"The ventilation?" asked Edward. "Are you going to crawl through the airshaft like they do in the movies?"

"I don't know if I could do that," Bella said meditatively. "It would have to be a pretty big airshaft is all I can say! But keep going, you're coming up with lots of good ideas!"

"OK" Edward closed his eyes, put his arm around her as she stood at his side and leaned back against the seat. "We can try to get you in through a fire exit. They might not be guarded. I could go inside and ring you with the security guard's locations and then you could try to sneak through. That's if you can open those fire doors from the outside. We really need to go there tonight and try it".

"OK, I agree. Got any other ideas?"

Edward blew out his cheeks. "God, you're like my head of department at a brainstorming session! You're insatiable. Well what about someone else distracts the security guy for you and you slip past. Bit dodgy. It would have to be a really good distraction. Could we ring the right to life association and tell them that tomorrow's talks are all about using human embryos for experimentation or something? Maybe some anti-animal cruelty group. Is anyone presenting primate research tomorrow? Primates usually get them all stirred up. Has to be something a bit more than rats."

Bella chewed her bottom lip. "Very risky" she commented. "Too many unknowns. We'd have to go and find some kind of nutcase fringe group this evening, convince them that they need to make a protest tomorrow, then they'd have to be nutcase enough to do it but not too nutcase to organize a major protest overnight. Even then, they'd have to get into the hotel to actually distract the guys at the doors whereas even if you got the right-to-life nuts here, they'd probably just picket outside the front doors and that wouldn't help much".

Edward groaned. "You're always so practical. You're ruining my brilliant ideas with logic. How about you just ask a colleague to faint or throw a pretend fit or get into a punch-up or something right at the doors to the lecture room?"

"Yes" she said doubtfully. "But who would I get to do any of those things? And don't say you because I told you I'm not having you any part of this. You've made enough of a target of yourself already".

'Well I'm sure I could find someone" he brushed her objection aside. "But it would have to be precisely timed and you'd have to rush through the door. Can we disguise you?"

"It would have to be a very good disguise, but here I am at a shopping centre. Maybe I can buy a wig? That and some makeup, different clothes, it could work. It wouldn't be easy"

"Then there's just one last thing. Dress up as a hotel employee and sneak into the room carrying a tray of drinks or something. Hopefully they won't look too closely at you".

"Brilliant!" she exclaimed. "Completely brilliant! Or I could combine 2 and 3 or 3 and 4 or whatever it was. I could disguise myself and dress as a hotel employee. They'd never notice me!"

"OK, so back to the city to buy a wig?" asked Edward with a resigned air. "Yep, exactly! And then we need a fake conference ID badge, and an employee's uniform…what?" she asked in response to his surprised look.

"Well, you don't need all of it!" he exclaimed. "I think we should try the lot!" she replied. "The fake ID is the simplest and if it works it would be the best since I'd still be me. But if it fails then I'm determined to have a plan B. And for that I need a wig. Let's go."

"Wait a minute" Edward called her attention back. "What's up?" she asked. "We've got to hurry". "There's just one thing. What are you going to present? They took your computer, they've got your memory stick. Did you e-mail your presentation to yourself?"

Bella groaned. "No, I forgot! I usually do that just in case and the one time I really need it…" she thought for a few moments and then said "Raymond".

"Who the hell is Raymond?" asked Edward. "My secretary" she explained. "What time is it? He'll be in the office now. I can get him on to the office computer. There's a version there. It's not the latest version but who cares? I can fix it later. Wait, let me ring him".

"I'm going to get another drink," said Edward. "Want anything?" Bella shook her head already taking out her mobile. "Thank God they didn't take my phone!" she exclaimed. "Oh, wait, could I have some water?"

Edward nodded and headed toward the counter. She concentrated on the phone ringing.

The office had the answering machine on. Desperately she rang Raymond's number. The phone rang out and then switched to his voicemail. Bella left an incoherent message telling him to call her from wherever he was and that she would pay him back for all costs and rang his phone again. "Come on" she found herself saying under her breath.

"Hello, world traveler, how gorgeous is it in San Francisco right now?" came Raymond's cheerful voice. "Tell me you are in one of the fabulous cafes in the Castro, surrounded by fabulous looking buff guys. I'm so jealous" he went on.

Bella had to interrupt him. "Not exactly Raymond. I'm in an internet café in an outlet mall on the way to the Napa valley with my ex-boyfriend".

"Ooooh, tell, are you being a bad girl?" gushed the other end of the phone. "Is he nice? Would I like him?"

"Actually Raymond, things have not been going so well to be honest". Immediately her secretary was full of concern. "What happened? Can I do anything?" "Yes!" Bella took her chance to jump into the conversation. "I've lost my computer and my flash drive. Can you e-mail me my presentation? You'll find it on my desktop computer in 'my documents', presentations, MSAS". "Wait a sec, wait a sec, I'm still in the car park. I haven't got to work yet. OK, OK I'm slacking off while the boss is away. Alright, I'm going up the stairs and I'll be at the office in a few minutes. So what's been happening to you?"

"You wouldn't believe it. " Bella was silent for a few moments. "I'm a victim of corporate bullying" "What?" asked Raymond "I thought you got mugged in the big bad San Francisco. I was going to ask you if it was a guy and if he was cute". "What do you mean, corporate bullying?" "A drug company is trying to shut down my presentation. It's just nuts, but they think that the implications for sales of their oral contraceptives will be badly hit by my tiny little pathetic presentation. They are completely paranoid and they're also big and unscrupulous and they mean business. They took my computer and my memory stick and their security goons beat up my ex-boyfriend who has been trying to help me…" "Sorry, I'm having trouble believing any of this!" "So am I and I'm living it!" "Is your ex-boyfriend good-looking?" "What's that got to do with any of it?" "I'm just asking. Is he married?" "Not that it's any of yours or my business but no, although he is living with his girlfriend"

There was a silence. "You seem a bit touchy about this, dear. Have you been having any romantic revisited interludes? The lure of the ex- is pretty powerful, and I should know." "Really?" asked Bella momentarily distracted. "What's going on with your ex-?" Raymond sighed deeply. "Oh he's mean, that one. He knows I can't resist his gorgeous blonde looks. He comes around when he's got nothing else to do, uses me and leaves again. And you know, I let him in every time. After he leaves I say 'that was the last time' but I know that the next time I hear his voice and look into those beautiful bloodshot, drunken eyes I'm going to fall for him again…" He trailed off and Bella could hear the sound of fingers clicking on keys in the background.

"The problem is that Edward and I didn't ever exactly break up. We just started working on different continents but we kind of left it open".

"Until you got married, dear" interjected Raymond. "Don't forget that". "I'm not forgetting it," said Bella. "Well, I might have once or twice especially when he was kissing me"

"Oh my God!" screeched Raymond so loudly she had to hold the phone away from her ear. "He kissed you?" "Yes," admitted Bella desperately. "I feel terrible about it. It was a terrible betrayal. I should never have done it. I tell myself that the only one who can get hurt by such things is me, but it's not true. I could hurt Edward of course and most of all I could really hurt Jacob and I couldn't live with myself…"

She was startled by a laugh at the other end of the phone. "Darling please! Let's not make of this more than we really have to! You're currently in a country where a previous president was publically found out doing bizarre things with very young only moderately attractive girls in his office. I mean on that sort of scale, kissing your ex-boyfriend is practically normal".

Bella found herself laughing at him despite herself. "Honey, you need to watch more soaps", he continued. "That's nothing. Do it again. Knock yourself out just not up, if you'll forgive me for saying so. OK, here's the file and it's sent to you, almost, God this thing is slow first thing in the morning, it's like it needs a cup of coffee. I wish that tight bitch I work for could afford a better computer. JOKING! Ah there it is. Gone, now!"

Bella cheered. "You're brilliant Raymond!" she said. "Mmmm if I'm so brilliant why did I just send you that presentation, when you had told me that some kind of big pharma heavies were trying to beat you up over it. I don't want you to come back with a broken skull or something. I'll never find another job at this time of year".

Listening to him, Bella smiled. She could just picture him rolling his eyes and readjusting things at the desk as he talked, putting the paperclips straight, adjusting the card holder. The thought made her suddenly homesick. "I promise to take care of myself. Thanks again Raymond. I'll see you soon".

"Look after yourself, girl" Raymond hung up.

Edward had been loitering at the counter for a while but returned with her water during the last few minutes of her conversation. He was sucking thoughtfully on a straw when she turned around. "Iced tea" he said before she could say anything. "Want some?" he offered it to her. "No thanks" she pulled a face "I hate iced tea. How could you forget?" He shrugged. "I thought you might have changed," he said. She looked up at something not in the words themselves but in his tone. He was playing with something. "Here" he said placing something small in her hands. "It's a flash drive. They were selling them at the desk. It's only 1G and I don't think it's very good quality but seeing that they're likely to just rip it off you anyway…'

"Thanks Edward" she said sincerely. He shrugged and she had to hold him to say it to him again. "No really, thanks". He shrugged again. "I didn't realise that seeing you again would be quite this exciting" he said. "I thought we'd just chat, maybe go out for dinner, catch up, talk about old times, see if I could talk you into sleeping with me… you know". He grinned, he was teasing her. "Nothing about getting beaten up by vicious security guys or trying to get you past these guys into that lecture tomorrow".

"I told you, whatever we plan I don't want you to be actively part of it. You leave it to me. I couldn't stand to watch you get hurt again".

"How do you know I would get hurt?" he asked huffily. "This time I might be ready for them. I might smash two of their heads together while kicking a third in the groin. Then, while they're all lying together in a heap, you could rush up to the stage".

Bella continued to smile at him. "You know that would never happen in a million years, don't you?" she asked. "Yeah, yeah" he said. "Alright let's go".


	14. Chapter 15

They drove back to the city, much faster, ignoring the spectacular late afternoon sun. They decided to pick up Edward's friend and go back to his house. Edward thought he would have all the software to make her a fake badge.

"We still haven't solved the problem of how to get your presentation on the computer" he reminded her about half way there as the traffic began to increase.

"I know, I know" she sighed. "But one step at a time. It's worrying me too. Maybe something will come to me when we're wandering around the conference centre tonight."

"If we can wander around the conference centre" he added.

Bella had insisted on going quickly to the Saks Fifth Avenue outlet before they left the mall because she was convinced that the security guard detail would recognize her handbag. Or at least, that's what she said. Edward expressed his doubts that any man could recognize any handbag ever. He was even more suspicious when Bella pronounced the 25% off Prada handbag definitely the most subtle. They also stopped off at a shop they had found on the net before they left the café and bought a short, brown wig. Edward suggested the long, blonde one but Bella pointed out that she was trying not to appear conspicuous.

They needed to detour past their hotel to pick up her badge to make the fake one. Bella was too nervous to go up to the room alone in case they had been found however either S&D hadn't found them or they thought they had done everything necessary to prevent her from making any unwelcome appearances the next day. On the way out she briefly suggested sticking a hair across the door with saliva so that they could check if it had been opened later and she was actually half-serious. Edward ignored the suggestion. They picked Emmett up from his office downtown and headed back to his apartment, which was very new. Emmett seemed excited by the prospect of making her a new ID; he said it reminded him of college days. They took a photo of her old badge and then put it into photoshop.

"I hope you've got a good quality printer," he told his friend. "OK Bella what name do you want?"

Bella was momentarily at a loss. "I don't know" she said. "Got any suggestions?" They both found themselves looking at Emmett. "Umm" he said appearing stressed "La, la Laurel?" he suggested. "Laurel what?' asked Edward. "Laurel…Canyon?" suggested Gene. "That's a place in Los Angeles" Edward protested.

"Oh you're right" his friend said, crestfallen. "Well how about the soap opera name generator?" "The what?" asked Bella. "It's on the net" he explained "My girlfriend went through a patch of playing with it. Here. There it is. OK what's your first name, middle name, surname. Just fill it in. OK let's see the result."

"Your jedi name is Shepe Mccomel" read Bella. "My jedi name? That doesn't sound like a jedi name! It doesn't sound like anything".

"Try the soap opera name. Marie Inner. No, not so good is it? Inner? Where did it come up with that?"

"Well, it asked for the street I grew up in and unfortunately I grew up in Inner Crescent". "How about the porn name?" asked Edward. "That should have been Marie Inner. Hmmm Comet McCord. Nope I don't think so. Where did it get Comet from?" "My goldfish" she said uncomfortably "He was called Comet. He didn't last long…" "Not good" said Edward let's try another site. "Soap Opera name generator. Here we are. I put in your name and it suggests 'Chloe Berkley'. That's good enough".

Bella wasn't happy. "Chloe?" she said dismissively. "Do you know any scientists called Chloe?" "You're the first," retorted Edward. "But seriously there's no reason why someone called Chloe could not be a scientist. I wouldn't be so prejudiced" He went back to photoshop and started to change the name. "Besides, if they're looking at you that closely, you're stuffed".

"Thanks" she said "That makes me feel so much better about this".

The fake badge looked excellent when it was printed out although the blue of the logo was somewhat fainter than the real badge. "But that happens from time to time in normal print runs" Edward assured her. "It won't attract any attention".

They took Emmett out for Chinese to thank him for the loan of the car. He asked both of them lots of questions about Australia. Bella was relieved to be able to forget about everything while they recounted some of their favourite stories.

When they said goodbye, Bella thanked Emmett and he asked for her e-mail address so that he could hear how it went and keep in touch. She said goodbye with genuine regret. She could feel the ghost of an alternative life, one in which she came here with her boyfriend Edward and they caught up with his old college friend. The thought brought back the sadness of earlier in the day. She tried to concentrate on what was ahead.

They left the wig and the new ID tucked under the mattress in their hotel room, which was the only hiding place that didn't involve some sort of minor hardware DIY project. They walked the few blocks to the conference centre.

"What'll we do if we see any security guards?" asked Bella. Edward considered. "Well, it will be a chance to see if they recognize you" he mused. "We'll tell them that we left something behind in the conference today and that we came back to see if we could find it and see what happens". "And what if they let us in to the lecture room?" Edward shrugged. "We'll pretend to have a hunt around for a while, obviously not find anything and leave. Not a big deal. You worry too much" he concluded easily. "Yes" she agreed. She wished she could take his hand again but he kept them both firmly in his pockets. It was a chill night so she couldn't blame him, still she wondered if he was deliberately distancing himself from her.

They reached the conference hotel and walked in the revolving door to the grand entrance foyer. It was quite busy with what appeared to be a large tour party either arriving or departing. There were people and suitcases everywhere.

Without speaking, Bella and Edward took the escalator to the first floor, to the first convention hall. So far the convention centre level was dark and appeared to be empty. They followed the passage through a series of turns to another foyer area.

Unfortunately, when they reached the other foyer, it was not empty. Leaning casually on the rail over the next staircase was the unmistakable dark-suited outline of yet another security guard. He had his back to them.

Frantically Bella felt for Edward's hand. She pulled him to a stop and made faces at him, trying to show that she wanted to go back the way they had come. Edward shook his head at her and held her hand more firmly. He began to advance toward the guard. Without noticing, Bella found herself walking slightly behind him.

When they got about a quarter of the way down the foyer the guard noticed their approach. "Hey" he greeted them. "Centre's closed. Where do you think you're going?" Smoothly, Edward launched into his explanation. He had lost his watch somewhere; he thought there was a chance it might be where he was sitting at the conference today. Would it be possible for him to check?

The security guard looked slowly from one to the other of them. When he spoke it was equally slow. "Conference wasn't in the main room today" he said. "It was in the smaller function rooms downstairs. Why'd you think it would be up here?"

Slow, but not that stupid, thought Bella fighting a rising feeling of panic. The security guard was a few inches shorter than her companion but looked to weigh about twice as much. His neck was the size of one of Bella's thighs. Despite her panic, Bella found herself wondering how he got shirts to fit. Edward said something reasonably convincing along the lines of it being not only a very expensive watch, but having great sentimental value as it was given to him by his girlfriend on their first anniversary, and him wanting to check absolutely every possibility. Listening closely and weighing the response, Bella thought that he had done a good job; it was possible that he might be believed.

The next seconds proved that she was completely wrong. The man moved his head slightly and they saw that he was wearing a Bluetooth phone connector. "Yeah" he said into the phone. "This is station 20. Code grey activate".

"Let's go," she said in a low voice, tugging on Edward's arm. Edward seemed undecided. "What about my watch?" he said loudly.

"I'm going to have to ask you to just stay where you are for a couple of minutes." the security guard told them. He thrust his chest close to Edward's chest looking up into his face closely "And mister, I don't believe in the missing watch for a second, I think you're here for a completely different reason. But if I'm wrong, I'm terribly sorry". Edward backed away ever so slightly. "Bells" he said, still looking down at the security guard from a distance of inches. Bella looked round from behind his arm. "Mmm?" she said. She was aware that she was starting to shake.

"Run like hell!" shouted Edward throwing himself backwards and pulling her along with him. The security guard grabbed her by the shoulder but Edward threw him off. The guard turned and grappled with Edward, pulling and twisting at the front of his shirt, he managed to get him off balance and Edward half fell to his knees. Bella looked round desperately. The guard was leaning forward over Edward. She let fly an enormous kick from behind which fortunately seemed to connect with the guard's groin. She grabbed Edward's hand to help him up and aimed a sweeping blow with her handbag at the guard's head which didn't really achieve as much as she had hoped. He tried to grab the bag but she yanked at it violently enough that she was able to pull it free and ran frantically after Edward. They could hear running feet at the other end of the foyer now. There were shouts. Bella didn't look back. She hared along as fast as she could envying Edward's long-legged stride. They raced through the zig zag passageway and down the stairs beside the escalator. To her horror, Bella saw that another security man was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his arms spread to block their way.

Edward didn't hesitate. He jumped over the rail onto the escalator and taking the steps three at a time, still managed to keep moving downwards at a rapid pace. The guard ignored him, concentrating on Bella. Without meaning to, Bella slowed her pace slightly wondering what she could do to get past him. More shouts at the top of the stairs told her that she had little chance of getting away if this man held her up even for a few seconds. She resolved to try a flying leap onto him, to see if she could knock him off balance when to her surprise, a figure from her right side did it for her. Edward had leaped sideways from the end of the escalator, concentrating on her, the guard hadn't seen him coming until the last minute. Together, Edward and the security guard hit the floor just as Bella's leap took her flying past them. She landed awkwardly but during her stumble noticed that Edward had bounced off the floor and evaded the guard's tackle. He grabbed her hand again and they ran into the still crowded hotel lobby. Edward took a second or two to pick up suitcases and bags and fling them at their attackers. There was confusion and protest from the guests in the lobby but fortunately no-one tried to stop them.

Bella thought they might be held up at the door but fortunately the porters were busy hauling bags and sorting out cars and the doors themselves were relatively abandoned. Bella and Edward flung themselves out onto the street where a light rain was now falling. As they left Edward pulled a last baggage trolley in their path but by the sound of the heavy feet behind them it didn't do much good. Without considering where they were going she followed him to the right at the end of the drive and off down the street. After a half a block she realised they were headed for Union Square. This seemed like a good idea, she thought, to head for a populous area. If they could stop running for a second, they could hide amongst the crowd.

"How are you going?" she heard Edward shouting to her. "OK" she puffed "But not for too long" she added in between panting for breath. He made a sharp left turn down a small street. They were coming up to the shopping centre. "In here" he yelled.

The dodged through the doors of the centre and ran up an escalator. Unfortunately the stores were closing and the place was fairly deserted. "We can't stay here!" Bella exclaimed. Looking back she could see that one of the guards was just coming through the same door they had. All the escalators were arranged around the open central area and Bella quickly realised that they had to abandon the escalators or they'd be easily seen "This way!" she shouted and bolted for the store at the corner. This massive flagship clothing store was over three levels and she had been there the day she arrived in San Francisco, on her way to the convention centre, considering doing some shopping. Now, she tore through the racks and ran down the stairs and out the front door.

They found themselves on Market street. The lights changed and they ran across the road, not waiting to see if the pursuit had caught up with them. At the Powell street terminal a cable car clanged the warning that it was about to leave. With an extra burst of speed they dodged the traffic and leaped onto it. Bella's foot slipped off the board at the side which was become very slippery with rain, but she had a firm grip on the side pole and Edward grabbed her collar. There was a moment when her legs were flying in space but she clung on firmly and came down in a heap, falling against the footboards. Edward hauled her up to the seat and the cable car picked up speed and slid smoothly away leaving the nightmare of searching security far behind.


	15. Chapter 16

Bella and Edward had to endure the curious stares of the other passengers and also a furious tirade from the conductor who lectured them at length about the dangers of leaping onto moving vehicles. They sat meekly enough, panting, trying to catch their breath. The cable car was only half full. On the one hand thought Bella, they could hardly be more conspicuous if they tried, on the other hand at least they were sitting, not running, and still moving away from the pursuit. At the first stop they came to, she tensed and readied herself to jump off if anyone appeared to threaten them. The conductor was still haranguing them but had allowed Edward to attempt to pay him. No dark suited figure appeared, and as they drew further away she began to believe that they might have escaped.

The car was on the Powell-Mason line. It took them until half way through Chinatown to stop panting. Bella felt as if every breath she drew burned. They said very little beyond asking if the other were all right.

In the end they rode the cable car to the end of the line. This was a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf. Edward suggested that they might find a bar or café there that opened late, where they could talk safely and get a drink. This seemed like a good idea to Bella, however Fisherman's Wharf is actually a few blocks from the cable car terminal and the rain had become heavier. Standing under the verandah of a shop at the end of the cable car line, Edward muttered that he didn't think it was such a good idea but Bella merely shrugged and said that she didn't have any better ones and that she wasn't going to make it back to the hotel without a drink. She was sweating heavily from the run; that combined with the rain made her feel utterly wet through and very cold.

They crossed the road and found a combined bar and restaurant. As they went in, the rain began to come down solidly outside. They settled into a booth and ordered Irish coffees which turned out to be a local specialty, as well as large glasses of water. Bella took off as much of her clothes as she dared to see if she could dry them out and dragged her fingers through her bedraggled hair. They didn't speak. When the coffees came she held hers in both hands to try to warm them. Edward also looked as if he'd been in the shower. His gorgeously messy hair (which he was very sensitive about) was usually in a tousled mass however now it hung over his forehead and into his eyes, limp and wet. Every so often he brushed it back with his fingers and frowned as he tried to pat it into place but it immediately fell forward again. She laughed.

"I don't think I've ever seen you with a fringe" she said. He smiled a little self-consciously and explained. "I keep it a bit longer on the top now than I used to. It's something to do with the shortage". Once again he brushed it backwards and looked at her over the rim of his coffee. "Well, that was a disaster" he said. Bella considered. "Not a complete disaster" she qualified "At least we got away. If they'd caught us, now that would have been a complete disaster." Edward had to agree. "Well at least we know what the plan for tomorrow is now," he said. "You're going to have to disguise yourself and try to get in there with the fake ID. You can disagree if you like but I think that guy knew who we were. I think a description had been circulated. I think if you try to go as yourself tomorrow, you've got no chance".

Bella didn't disagree. "Oh, well at least if I go disguised I won't have to be polite to people" she said lightly. "I can tell that arse Mike that his talk was crap and get away with it".

Edward laughed at her but she ignored him, sitting upright suddenly as a thought struck her. "That's it!" she exclaimed. "That idiot is giving a talk in the same session. I can get him to load my presentation!"

Edward stopped laughing. "Who is this guy?" he asked. Bella gave an exasperated sigh. "He's sort of like my nemesis but only if you can imagine a kind of bumbling, useless nemesis. He was in my year at Uni, we worked at the same hospital and after internship, and he chose to do obstetrics and gynaecology much to my surprise, not having said anything about it for the whole six years at Uni. He and I have never trained at the same hospital, we've both moved around but we've never been in the same place, luckily. He's overly friendly whenever I run into him at the same time as being overly competitive. I can't stand him although that's mean of me. He's harmless enough".

"So, it doesn't sound as if he would be that keen to do you a favour" said Edward doubtfully "Especially if he sees you as a bit of a rival".

"No, no, he'll be fine" Bella waved him away in the middle of getting out her phone. "I've even got his phone number. He insisted on giving it to me a while ago. Let's try him".

Mike answered the phone on the second ring. "Hello, it's Mike!" he said cheerily.

"Mike, it's Bella, Bella Swan. What are you doing?"

"Bella!" exclaimed the voice at the end of phone. "This is a surprise! How are you? I'm not doing anything much. It's late and I'm, well, actually, I'm in bed, to be honest".

" Mike, I really need your help".

The other end of the phone was changed from hand to hand and then a voice finally said "What could you possibly need from me a this time of night?" He wasn't just questioning, he was also making it as difficult for her as possible. She recognized Mike's attempt to get some of his own back for all the times she had slighted him. She knew he wanted her to really plead with him. She thought about the end of the species and for a brief second didn't feel too bad about it. Better get it over with, she thought.

"Mike I really need your help. I'm in great difficulty. The only person who can help me with this is you and you would have my complete gratitude for ever". She pulled a face at Edward to try to stop him; he was laughing at her groveling.

"OK, OK," allowed Mike much to her relief. "What to do you need me to do?" "I need you to load my presentation when you go to the speaker ready room tomorrow morning" she told him. "That's it?" he asked sounding bewildered. "That's going to make you my slave for life? OK sure, but why can't you do it?" "I can't make it tomorrow morning early enough" she said. She briefly tried to think of an explanation but failed abjectly. "I can't tell you about it on the phone but would you promise me to do it?" There was a pause of a few moments while Mike obviously thought about it but eventually he relented. "Oh all right" he said. "How are you going to get it to me?" Bella thought quickly. "I'll e-mail it to you" she decided. "Have you got an internet connection in your room?" "No" he replied unhelpfully. "Can I meet you in the bar or a nearby café?" "Come on, Bella, it's really late and I'm in my pyjamas and I've got this talk to give tomorrow and mine is before yours, can I remind you". "OK then I'll have to come over there," she said. "Where are you?" "In the Hilton Towers" he replied "Room 5321, fifth floor". "OK" she replied. "I'll see you soon".

She put down the phone and made a face. "He wants me to go over there," she said. "I thought I'd already asked you for all the favours I could possibly think of but here I am asking for one more. Will you come with me? He says his in his pyjamas and he's insisting he can't go out and that I'll have to go to his room to give it to him and I'm just a bit worried…"

"Don't worry" said Edward reassuringly. "I'm coming with you. I was going to anyway but I definitely don't like the sound of this guy. If anybody's going to assault you indecently while they're in their pyjamas around here it'll be me". He was laughing. Bella gave him a mock glare. "Firstly you wouldn't dare, secondly it might be quite difficult to sexually assault someone while still wearing your pyjamas and thirdly you don't even wear pyjamas". "Details, details" he replied airily.

They paid their bill and hailed a taxi to take them to the Hilton. They found their way to her colleague's room without any difficulty. Bella knocked at the door. "Mike?" she called in a low voice. The door was opened slightly and someone peered around the chain. Edward stood slightly to one side of the door so he couldn't easily be seen.

"Just a second" said a voice from behind the door, which was shut again and they heard the sound of a chain being pulled back. The door opened. "Come in".

Bella stepped through into the room, pausing slightly to introduce Edward who bounced around the door smartly as soon as he saw Bella go inside. "Mike, this is a friend of mine called Edward Masen. He's a scientist and he's attending the conference too. Mike, Edward, Edward, Mike".

The two men nodded warily at one another but didn't venture any more pleasantries than that. In Edward's presence, Mike acted slightly sulky but was unable to do any more. They downloaded the file to his computer successfully and Bella told him that she had e-mailed him a copy just in case. He tried to rename it from to but Bella refused to let him change the name. "Don't tell them it's for anyone else," she warned him. "Why?" he asked, ready to protest. Bella thought quickly. "They won't like it if I can't make it to the speaker room to give them the slide show myself" she improvised wildly. "They might cancel my talk, thinking I'm not there or something. And I think there's something about not letting anyone load talks that aren't their own" she continued "You know it's like 9/11 on the airlines, I think they ask if you've seen the talk yourself or something". "Really?" Mike commented doubtfully. "Oh yes," she affirmed looking at Edward for support "Just in case the presentation turns out to be fundamentalist propaganda. So you must have a quick look at it if you like so that you can honestly say that you prepared all of it if necessary. And that's why I can't put anything identifying on it. Don't worry I'll work out which one it is". Mike agreed to this very doubtfully but didn't appear to have much choice with Edward leaning against the wall with his arms folded nodding emphatically. Bella thanked him for his part very graciously "We must catch up when you are back in Melbourne. You'll have to come and give my department a seminar or something". They left after Bella warned Mike one last time not to mention her visit or the favour to anyone.

As they walked away down the corridor, Edward asked her "Do you think he'll do it?" Bella considered. "I think so. He's a pompous pain in the arse but I've never heard anyone say he was unreliable. In fact, in the past I would have said you could rely on him to be an arse in almost any situation!"

They walked the few blocks back to their hotel. It was now very late and the streets were almost deserted. The rain had finally stopped. The coffee had ebbed and Bella felt almost dizzy with exhaustion. She clung on to Edward's arm on the walk back. Her exhausted state brought back her paranoia. At the sound of a car starting on the street next to them she jumped. She peered around into the dark and saw threats in every shadow.

Reaching their room, Bella fell on the bed. Edward sat in the armchair and picked up the remote control almost automatically. He turned it to CNN. "More on the possible end of the human species after these messages" announced the anchor looking seriously at the monitor. He flipped the channel. "The President gave an address to the nation earlier today to outline his response to the crisis" declaimed a voice. "He announced a further 5 million dollars in research funding for studies into this condition and possible cures". Bella groaned. "Change the channel," she said, with her eyes still shut. Edward flipped again. "The Hollywood Gossip Minute!" announced a raucous voice. "That's better," said Bella. "Sometime actress Lindsay Lohan was present at the opening of the new Boba store in Beverly Hills. Asked about the recent announcement of the possible end to human reproduction, Lohan announced her intention to try to conceive immediately. 'I want to do my part for humanity' she explained".

Bella sat up in horror as Edward turned the TV off. "The only thing she could do for humanity is have herself sterilized" Bella exclaimed. Edward nodded. Bella lay down on the bed again. "I'm a wreck" she said quietly. "I know something that might make you feel better," said Edward and he got up and moved into the bathroom. A minute later she heard the sound of water running into a bathtub. A warm bath, she thought. With Edward. Brilliant.

Just then she heard the noise of an SMS on her mobile phone. She pulled herself around to reach for her bag and drew out the phone. It was from Jacob. "Haven't heard much from you today" he wrote. "Hope ur alright. I love you."

When Edward came out of the bathroom to announce a soothing bath he found her lying on the bed crying helplessly as if she could never stop.


	16. Chapter 17

"Bells. Bells." whispered a voice in her ear. Bella opened her eyes. It was dark in the room but she sensed light behind the window blinds. She made an incoherent noise and rolled over, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. She didn't want to face the world yet.

She became aware that someone was lying next to her. She turned her head toward them and Edward put his arm around her and then began to lightly stroke her back and rub her shoulders. After a few more minutes during which she lay peacefully still he moved still closer to her and nuzzled into her neck. "Bells" he murmured again.

That got her attention. She sat abruptly upright. "What time is it?" she asked. "It's seven thirty," said Edward sounding slightly disappointed. "I thought you better get up in good time. You'll have to have a play around with your wig, which by the way, I think we slept on last night. And you'll need some breakfast".

Bella lay down again on her front and buried her head in her pillow particularly at the mention of last night. Awake, she considered the events of the night before. She had been almost hysterical with exhaustion, fear and overwhelming sadness. Edward had helped her into an enormous bubble bath and hadn't had much choice but to get in with her although she candidly admitted to herself that had probably been his intention all along. She wondered how she felt about Edward this morning. She loved him, she had loved him, she was still angry at him for not staying with her years ago, she hated him now for what he wanted from her and how well he knew her. It was all too hard, she decided and today she had another task to worry about. If she made it through then she would worry about her current confusion.

She got up to wash and dress. As Edward had suggested they had to play with the wig for about twenty minutes to get it looking relatively natural. "You can still tell it's a wig" she fussed. Edward didn't think they would look that closely. "They won't be expecting you back there today" he said confidently. "I'm sure they'd never think for a second that you'd defy them. Bella" he went on staring down at his hands. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? It could be the end of your career, you know?" "I know" she said serenely "But so what? Really, it could be the end of the world as we know it. I can always retrain as a GP" she concluded. Or stay home and be a housewife, she nearly added but choked back on the words. She didn't want to bring up the subject of her marriage.

They went to breakfast, Bella feeling very conspicuous. She was sure the waitress was looking at her hair. "It's obvious," she muttered under her breath. "No-one is looking at you" said Edward. "Or if they are it's because you're with me and the staff know that I'm sharing a room with a girl with long dark hair" he continued. "They're actually looking at me and thinking 'you two-timing bastard'". Again Bella just prevented herself from saying "And they're right aren't they?" Instead she asked innocently. "Have you heard from Taylah recently?"

Edward frowned and fiddled with his menu. "Not for a couple of days" he admitted "But she knows I'm busy". He didn't say any more and Bella let the subject drop, unwilling to go on to any difficult discussions. "I'm getting a newspaper," she said.

The headlines were still about MSAS. "Fertility Crisis" screamed one front page. "Millions of women affected will be unable to have children" was printed in quotes underneath. Bella went back to her seat. She didn't want any more evidence that S&D were correct in their assessment of the newsworthiness of her research. She fiddled with her toast, spreading each half with different types of jam before taking a small bite and finding she couldn't eat any of it.

All at once, Edward looked up from where he had been looking through one of the newspapers. "It's time to go" was all he said. She nodded and wiped her mouth on her napkin. Edward signed for breakfast and they left. They could tell by the number of people carrying conference bags around them that they would be arriving at the same time as the crowds. That was part of the plan.

Today it became even more crowded than they thought trying to get close to the convention centre. The pavements were full. A couple of blocks away from the centre they began to see people carrying placards. "Science =Doom" Bella read on one banner. "What on earth does it mean?" she asked Edward. He shrugged. "The nutcase fringe fighting back" he said grimly. She had to get him to repeat it over the noise of the crowd.

Closer still, they became aware that a queue was forming in front of the building. "What the hell now?" asked Bella already completely on edge. They joined what appeared to be a line and came to a halt for a few minutes. "What's going on?" Edward asked the man in front of him. "Security" came the reply. "Just like yesterday but the crowds are even worse today" he added. Bella and Edward exchanged grim glances. We should have guessed, thought Bella that every media outlet in the country would be besieging the place. As well as the nutcase fringe as Edward calls them. The security would be massive. Nervously she clutched the badge in her pocket. When they got near the hastily set up security screening, she could see that it involved metal detectors and police. In the confusion she allowed a few people to sneak in between her and Edward. It had been part of their plan to separate outside the centre and this was the best she could do in the circumstances. Edward hadn't liked the idea but he agreed that her new disguise wouldn't help if she were recognized as being with him. She saw his face turned toward her; half-alarmed, and then he walked toward the nearest security checking station. She pretended to look for her badge in her bag to let some more people come in between them. When she looked up he was gone. She was going to have to go in alone.

Bella walked towards the security check. She could feel her heart beating wildly and her palms were slick with sweat. She showed the bored-looking security guard her fake name badge. He barely glanced at it, nodded and waved her through to the x-ray screener that had been set up. She put her conference bag on the belt and walked through the metal detectors with a resulting loud pinging noise. A female security officer bustled forward.

"It's in your head and neck region, honey" she drawled. "You got any jewelry or anything?" Bella took off her earrings and placed them in a tray held by the security officer. She walked back through the metal detector archway with the same result. The female security officer shook her head and another male colleague appeared as from nowhere.

"It's saying it's in your head honey" said the female security guard again. Suddenly it occurred to Bella what it might be. They had bought a packet of hair pins with which to pin her real hair up. That morning she had stuck it up, using every single hairpin in the whole packet. That, she realised was probably causing the alarm at the metal detector. The female security guard was now running the handheld detector over her with the result that multiple buzzing noises sounded over her skull.

Bella thought quickly, she didn't want them to examine her head to closely and reveal her wig. "I was in a car accident once", she said subtly trying to change her accent. "I had a head injury and they removed part of my skull. I believe they left a metal plate in there instead. Never caused me any problems but occasionally it registers on these metal detectors".

The female security guard and the other man exchanged glances. "Uh huh" said the former. They asked her to turn to her left to her surprise and pause facing that way for a second. They wrote down her name from her badge. Then they let her go. The male security guard fetched her conference bag and presented it to her. "You have a nice day" he said.

Unable to believer her luck, she stumbled forward along with the crowds. The foyer was extremely noisy with the sounds of all the people striving to get in from the outside, some noisy protester some dodgy media representatives, interested bystanders who thought it must be something important, like an actor's convention. She went up the escalator to the second foyer. The noise of the crowd outside was barely audible here and the usual conference attendees were standing around. There was a general air of some anxiety probably the result of fighting their way in. Bella saw Edward standing at the balcony, watching people coming up the escalator. She caught his eye briefly and was able to see that he looked relieved but she looked away again immediately. She did not want him any further embroiled in her problems.

She stood by the wall to catch her breath and for a moment think about what she was going to do. She wondered if, when it came to the last minute, she could actually go through with it. She closed her eyes and held her breath briefly which seemed to help.

She hesitated over whether to go into the lecture room earlier and get the last hurdle over with or whether to sneak in at the last moment. Unable to wait any longer, she decided on the former. She joined the throng of people now steadily making their way to the big double doors. There was another holdup here as there was only one set of doors open. As she drew closer she found that this was because security guards at the door were checking the badges of the attendees as they passed.

Bella tried to stop when she saw this but the people around her pushed her forward. She put her head down and moved slowly along, holding out her fake ID as others around her were doing. As she came abreast of the security guards at the door (who she noticed were dressed in the familiar dark gray suits) she made to walk past but he held out his hand to bar her passage. "Just a moment ma'am" he said quietly.

Bella's palpitations started up again. She waited nervously, fighting the temptation to turn and run.

The security guard spoke into his Bluetooth phone connector. When he heard the reply, she felt his hand close around the top of her arm. She stood limply, fighting back tears. Despite her helpless appearance however, she was thinking furiously about how she could get out of the situation. He right arm, the one not being held by the security guard snaked into her bag and closed around something hard. She remembered that there was a pen there, provided for taking conference notes. While the security guard continued to confer with his earpiece she tensed herself for flight, drew her hand holding the pen out of the bag and stabbed violently at the hand that was holding her arm. In the brief second in which he instinctively pulled away, she wrenched herself backwards, got down on her hands and knees and fled through the crowd's legs.

Behind her she heard an outburst of crowd confusion, the roars of the security guard, a woman screaming and many voices raised. Fortunately, by the time the people nearest realised what she had done, she was already away from them, soon reaching the back of the crowd, where she stood up and tried to look inconspicuous. The people around asked her what was happening. "A terrorist!" she said to the nearest woman. "A man with a knife! Security tried to grab him but he got away. I was so scared I thought I'd drop onto my hands and knees and get away".

At her words, the nearest people turned round and started running towards the exit. Bella went with them, again hoping to hide in the crowd but as they got to the second foyer she saw security coming up the escalators. She turned around, now with some difficulty because of the people rushing to get out. The only escape she could see was the little back stair that led down to the mezzanine level with the small function rooms where she had first met the S&D representative and where Edward had come to find her. She bolted down the stairs. She ran along the corridor, trying doors as she went but they were all locked. She was coming to a dead end and feeling increasingly desperate. She could hear the noise clearly from the upper levels, there were blasts whistles and raucous shouts as law enforcement officials attempted to restore order. It was surely only a matter of time before they tried to search down here.

To her astonished relief, the second last door was not fully closed and opened easily in response to her desperate pull. She threw herself into the room and shut the door which left her in absolute darkness. Trembling, she waited until her eyes adjusted sufficiently to be able to make out the crack of light under the door. She felt hesitantly around where she thought the margins of the door would be finally contacting something recognizable as a light switch in her shaking fingers. She pushed the switch and found that she was in a store cupboard belonging to housekeeping. There were stacks of towels on shelves, soap, and all the usual amenities, even a box full of little packets of biscuits. Bella found herself a stack of towels to sit on. Then she turned out the light. She curled her knees up in front of her and covered them with her arms, burying her face. She couldn't hear what was happening outside any more. She stayed that way for an indeterminate length of time that felt like hours.

All at once she heard the sound of someone humming and a trolley being pushed along the carpet. She raised her head and tensed wondering what this might mean. She had no time to react when the door was opened and the light turned on.

"Hey! Who are you? What are you doing?" a startled young female voice said. Bella couldn't see the speaker in the sudden bright light. She blinked furiously trying to clear her vision. "I'm just hiding! Please don't hurt me! Don't call security! I'm not doing any harm" she found herself babbling.

Now that she could see, there was a girl in her twenties standing in the doorway in the uniform of one of the conference area staff, a black tunic and trousers. She had dark spiky hair that framed her face. She stared at Bella and then unexpectedly gave her a comradely grin. "Are you running away from all that mess upstairs?" she asked. She seemed quite cheerful about it. "All those big important people at the big conference, all those newspapers and TV people and things and then something happens, who knows what and next thing they're all screaming and running for the exits. Cops don't know what's going on, security trying to find someone. It's a joke. But fucking dangerous up there! I stayed in the lecture room for a bit with my trolley. There were these serious looking guys in suits trying to hide under seats. It was unreal! When did you run away down here?"

"I don't know how long ago" said Bella warily. "I was next to this guy who suddenly started screaming something about a man with a knife. I don't know what happened really. And then security tried to grab me but I ran away. There were people everywhere and I didn't know what to do so I ran down here to hide. I was just wondering what was happening". She did her best to look helpless, which in the circumstances wasn't too difficult. "The thing is" she went on "I'm supposed to be giving a presentation today, but with everything going on and then the security guy thinking that the man was screaming about something I'd done, I don't know that I'm going to get to do it".

The girl gave her an appraising look. "So right" she said, "Those security fuckers they hired are bastards. They hassled all the housekeeping staff like anything the other day. My friend Millie started crying just from the way they spoke to her. Just 'cos she's been done for possession a couple of times. She's just had bad luck, that's all. But they told her to fuck off for the rest of the conference and now she's scared they won't take her back at all even after this thing is over." "I'm so sorry for your friend" said Bella. "I've had a run in or two with them myself and I agree they're a bunch of assholes. They beat up a friend of mine who was just trying to help me out".

There was a brief silence and then the hotel employee asked "Some sort of science thing is it? All this stuff there's been on TV the last couple of days. About how women won't be able to have children any more?"

"Yes" said Bella "That's what it's about. I was trying to work out what might have caused it"

The girl nodded. "Good thing if you ask me. Never wanted children. Another friend of mine got knocked up when she was 16, then the guy ran off. Now she's got three and she's so fucking miserable she's going to kill either them or herself one day".

Bella made a sympathetic noise and then fell silent. It seemed as if this girl was not going to give her away and that was all she cared about for the moment.

"Do you need me to help you to get into the talks?" was the next surprising thing the girl said.

"Would you be willing to do that?" asked Bella, startled. The girl tilted her head in a slight sideways nod. "Sure" she said. "Those security guys have been total assholes to the staff all week. You know just like, hassling us, and being really creepy, like checking out the female change rooms just at the time shift is starting and shit like that. I'd really like to fuck them over somehow. And get one back for my friend , you know, who might lose her job over their shit."

Bella continued to gape at her. "How could you get me in there?" she asked. "I don't want to get you in trouble".

"OK well, don't mention me then. Promise? I'll go back to the locker room, get a spare uniform and you can take one of those trays on the shelf over there with some glasses or something. No-one will notice you. These doctors or whatever they are at the conference treat you like shit usually. They don't even see you, unless they want something".

Bella felt herself blushing for her fellow researchers. "I'm so sorry" she said reflexly but the girl looked surprised. "Not your fault" she said reasonably.

She left, promising to return shortly with the uniform. Bella sat back on the pile of hand towels and leaned her head against the shelving in relief. Her eyes filled with tears at the thought that some stranger would offer her help in that way. She used one of the towels from the shelf to wipe them away.

After sitting for more than ten minutes she began to have some doubts about her rescuer. Perhaps she had just told her some story in order to go and bring security back with her. Perhaps she'd been offered some sort of bonus for doing so. Bella grew increasingly nervous. Perhaps any minute they would burst through the door. She thought she should take some precautions; try to squeeze herself next to the door so that she could slip out when they came or provide herself with some kind of weapon. Despite an increasing sense of despair, she found herself too exhausted to move. Instead she let her head loll against the shelves behind her and fell into a kind of doze.


	17. Chapter 18

**I apologise for the long gap. School holidays and other things...**

After a while Bella found herself thinking of Jacob. She pictured herself telling an increasingly disbelieving husband the story of her trip. She could hear his entirely rational voice saying things like "But why didn't you just offer to discuss it with them?" and "I can't believe that any president of a respected research body could stoop to blackmail". She smiled slightly and took out her phone. "'Bout to give my talk" she wrote in a text message "wish me luck". She sent the message and continued to smile at her understatement. She fell back into a dazed state, like sleeping.

The door to her cupboard was opened with shocking suddenness causing her to startle into full consciousness. "Just me" said the girl "Did I scare you?" She handed her a uniform and a badge. "Whose badge is it?" asked Bella curiously. "She quit a few months ago real sudden. She was there one day and just never came back. Her badge has been knocking around the locker room all this time". Bella looked at the badge to find that she was now called 'Aracelia Regalado'. "First Chloe, now Aracelia" she muttered.

The girl filled up a tray of glasses and mints for her to carry to the room. "You better hurry" she said, "They've finally got started. It took a while to get all those freaked out doctors back in the room I guess" she added with a chuckle.

Bella hadn't considered this. "What if I'm too early?" she asked hopelessly. The girl shrugged. "Just wait" she said. "We do that sometimes if it's dark and we have to do something; we just go in and wait until the lights come on. No big deal". She looked at Bella, puzzled, as if to say 'couldn't you have worked that out for yourself?' Bella felt a little slow and very stupid and generally exhausted. She wondered if she would be coherent enough to give her talk if she even got to the platform. After some thought, she decided to remove the wig. The security guards had already seen it anyway. She left her hair tightly coiled into a roll on her head, held with dozens of pins, hoping it didn't look too bizarre.

She managed to hide her conference bag beneath her tunic by hitching the carry strap tightly around her body. Before she left the safety of her cupboard, she checked her wallet and found it still contained about one hundred and twenty US dollars. She gave the girl $100. "I want you to have this" she said. "And thank you so much for all your help". The girl gave a grin and the money quickly disappeared into her pocket. "Good luck" she said. "I'll wait here for a bit until you're gone".

Bella set off up the stairs carrying her tray carefully. She worried that she was too nervous and clumsy in her current state to carry it off. By the time she made it to the corridor outside the lecture room she was more nervous than she had ever been in her life.

Bella approached the main door to the lecture theatre which was still flanked by two grey-suited security guards. Unlike before however, they were leaning against the wall seemingly quite relaxed. They barely glanced in her direction, increasing her confidence slightly. As she pulled open the door to the room, one of her stacks of glasses almost fell and there was a tinkle of glass about to crash. One of the security guards hastily put his foot up against the door and she managed to steady the tray. "Thanks" she whispered, barely able to look at his face. He said nothing further and she carefully slid her way into the room hardly able to believe it. She was past the security. She was in.

The lights in the room were dimmed but people were still clearly visible. The room was absolutely full. In fact, there was a row of people standing against the wall at the back of the room. Bella made her way carefully around the edge of the room to the back. She wasn't sure where she should go but she wanted to get as far away from security as possible. When she came to the back she thought there might be room to fit behind the row of standing people but as she tried to pass them, one or two turned and glared at her. She was quite taken aback by this particularly as she had met one of them before. She gave up her attempt however, loath to attract any attention and simply stood against the wall holding her tray.

When she was able to pay attention, she realised that it was Mike giving his talk. She couldn't concentrate on his talk at all and hardly heard more than one word in three. Her fractured concentration was torn between wondering if he had loaded her presentation as promised and trying to remember her slides and what she needed to say. She wished she could have a cup of coffee, or failing that a glass of iced water.

Mike finished to the sound of decent applause which startled Bella out of her thoughts. She started to work her way forward so that she could be near the front when they announced the next speaker. According to the original program, she was supposed to follow Mike. She could see Professor Grale on the platform; he appeared to be chairing the session. She thought he would probably make some kind of low-key announcement to the effect that the next talk was cancelled which would be her cue to jump up on stage and announce her presence. She wasn't sure what would happen next.

There were a couple of short questions which Mike appeared to respond to without difficulty. The time required for questions just allowed her to move to the front of the room. She set her tray down in a corner of the stage and waited for Professor Grale to make his next announcement. As she expected he started "There's been a slight change and the next speaker is –".

Abandoning her tray, Bella bounded up the platform stairs "Actually I'm here!" she announced brightly to the room. Professor Gale broke off looking momentarily confused. "I apologise for the confusion," she continued smoothly from the desk "I thought I might not make it. But here I am" she said and began to adjust the microphone height. She ignored the muttering that swept around the room at her appearance. She hoped that her uniform wasn't immediately obvious where she stood obscured by the speaker's desk and she took a moment to remove the badge identifying her as Aracelia.

When she looked at him, she knew that the Professor had recognized her by the glare of pure fury he gave her. However she had counted on the academic's basic politeness and hatred of causing anything resembling a fuss. He managed a grudging "Dr Bella Swan from Melbourne and her epidemiological study".

Bella checked the desktop. To her relief, Mike had evidently carried out his task faithfully. On the desktop was a powerpoint named 'presentation-unw' which she had named in honour of the feeling that it was rather unwanted. It opened without problems; she went to 'view slide show' and began her talk.

During the early slides she began to feel as if she were sleep walking. She rushed through the descriptions of MSAS, commenting that everyone in the room had heard them many times. She drifted through the slides describing her study, where she had obtained the data and what she had included and excluded, how she had reviewed the records and how she had set up the database. She felt as if she were describing something done by someone else.

She began to work her way through her result slides and felt Prof Grale tense on the other side of the platform, even though she could hardly see him beyond the circle of the speaker's light. She thought the audience also seemed quiet although there were definitely the usual number of people with troublesome coughs.

Her talk began to draw to its end. "And so in conclusion ladies and gentlemen, I found these factors to be significantly associated with incidence of MSAS. I would just like to remind everyone once again of the preliminary nature of the study. These data are very raw. I would not like anyone to come to any major causative conclusions on the basis of this information alone. There has been no analysis for possible confounders which in such a broad study are likely to be many." She moved on to her next slide hoping that she had said enough to get herself out of trouble. "Finally I have some acknowledgements. The clinical practice improvement unit, the hospital information service and Dr Steven Parris for assistance with the analysis".

Her energy was abruptly gone. She looked down at the speaker desk and became aware that she was shaking. She could hear the sound of decent applause but it seemed to echo oddly, as if it were in a bathroom and it appeared to be getting softer and louder. She noticed a glass of water on the table nearby and picked it up with shaking, unsteady hands. Desperately she took a drink and sat down on a chair that was evidently placed on the platform for one of the session chairpersons. She couldn't see any individuals in the audience over the bright lights of the platform but she wondered if Edward was out there and she imagined him clapping hard. She wished she could see him.

As the applause died down she heard Professor Grale say "I might start the questioning. Dr Swan, don't you think that the implication of a causative role for the oral contraceptive pill as you outlined in your study id rather farfetched? After all oral contraceptives have been around since the 1950s but MSAS has only appeared in the last 5 years. Isn't that most likely to be a red herring?" His tone was scathing. Like many Professors, he knew exactly how to cut an academic presentation down to size. Unlike most, she was not particularly concerned to defend her work. "I absolutely agree with you" she declared boldly "And I very specifically make no statements about causative mechanisms based on this work. I am merely suggesting new areas for research". She looked across the platform at him as well as she could beyond the glare of the light. She was tempted to let it go at that but a recklessness which came from all that she had experienced in the last couple of days prompted her to add "Although the oral contraceptive pill in general has been around for half a century, there are many different formulations. Some of the newer hormone compounds have been with us for only six or seven years".

The eminent professor pounced at once. "You are surely not suggesting that this new disease has been caused by the new estrogen and progesterone formulations? I have seen nothing in any of the presentations so far that suggest that this might be the case" and he practically snorted and folded his arms across his chest.

Such an opening from the president of the society set the tone for the audience to attack her presentation in any way they could. She soon gave up trying to defend her methodology or her findings and merely stood with her arms at her sides, oddly defenseless. I should have known, she thought vaguely, that if physical assassination didn't work they could always rely on character assassination. There is nothing so bloodthirsty as a pack of academics in a feeding frenzy she thought irrelevantly, listening to yet another questioner vilifying her research methods.

Professor Grale, as chairperson of the session should have cut the free-for-all off when the tone became ugly; the chairperson also has a mediator's role. However he sat back and did nothing and after all he had first unleashed this torrent of abuse thinly veiled as constructive criticism. Judging by his expression, he appeared to be enjoying the spectacle.

Bella refused to make more of a target of herself, generally agreeing with her interlocutors about the limitations of the study and eventually the crowd could think of nothing more to question. She was allowed to step back to the audience where she sank gratefully into a cross-legged position against the wall at the side below the speaker's desk.

"Now we were going to go straight on to the next session owing to our late start" began Professor Gale "But it seems that our eminent invited speaker has not yet arrived…"

"Just made it!" called a voice from the back of the audience. For the second time in as many talks, the president appeared discomforted. "Ah well Henry, better late than never" he admonished.

Up the center aisle of the lecture room came the very eminent scientist Henry Dubrovnic.


	18. Chapter 19

Up the center aisle of the lecture room came the very eminent scientist Henry Dubrovnic, wearing an old navy jacket and check shirt. He was a small man with short grey hair and large steel frame glasses.

"I'm sorry" he announced climbing the stairs to the platform and shaking Prof Gale by the hand. I hope you received my messages. I've just got straight off the plane after being up all night with the lab staff analyzing results. I believe I have something very exciting for you all today" he announced winking at the audience in a droll fashion.

He busied himself getting out his flash memory and inserting it into the computer; there was a few moments' tension as the computer failed to recognize the device driver and some expert advice was sought from someone at the audiovisual controls in the next room. As if released, the audience babble became louder and louder. Bella leaned her head on her hand. She wondered if she would be able to get up when the time came. Suddenly, she was aware of someone coming to sit on the floor next to her. She was abruptly scooped up into a pair of familiar arms into a hard embrace. "Well done!" exclaimed an American tenor voice softly in her ear "Oh Bells, I'm so proud of you!"

Bella held him as tightly as she could. She felt tears start from her eyes. "You're all right!" she found herself saying. Edward held her at arm's length just long enough to ask "Why wouldn't I be? It was you who was in danger! Oh God Bells I've been nearly out of my mind with worry!"

They pulled apart eventually to listen to Professor Gale who was giving a his colleague a glowing introduction which he finished by saying "And now I'll hand over to our invited keynote speaker Professor Henry Dubrovnic!" and he sat down with a flourish.

Henry Dubrovnic leant on the speaker desk and adjusted the microphone. He radiated a sense of enthusiasm and cheerfulness despite the deep circles under his eyes and his obvious exhaustion.

"May I just start by commenting that I did manage to catch most of the last talk which I thoroughly enjoyed? I thought the methodology quite sound although of course the conclusions that can be drawn are somewhat limited. I think however that I can explain some of your findings.."

Bella blushed at his words of support and buried her face in Edward's arm which was still holding her tightly. Edward gave her an extra squeeze.

"This slide shows a class of viruses of a rare and indolent nature, they are known as ka-virions. They have been identified as early as the 1970s in species such as lemurs. They are usually rare findings at autopsy. As you can see" he flicked to a new slide showing large pale staining cells, "they are usually found in the maternal germ cell lines of an animal. Lemurs may have up to 50% of their developing follicles replaced by these virus affected cells. When the animal gets to that point, its fertility is severely reduced".

"My laboratory chose to focus on these organisms because it is known that the worst affected lemurs tend to produce offspring with characteristic malformations very similar to that seen in MSAS. The difference of course is that in the lemurs, the virus is as I said initially somewhat indolent. Spread is through the maternal side. The life-cycle of the virus is rather unusual. It has an RNA proto-virus, transmitted through cell organelles and has the ability to reverse transcribe itself into DNA at various set points, these AATCGC repeats that you see here. These repeats are well known to be present in multiple places throughout the genome. The affect of the virus depends entirely on the reverse transcription of the RNA proto-virus. When researchers looked more closely among the lemur population, estimates of the prevalence of the proto-virus came close to 75%. But in most animals the protovirus was dormant. In a few follicles however it appears to activate itself".

"The mechanism of activation is unknown but I can tell you that our research group has shown that the proto-virus takes advantage of the fact that the cells are arrested in meiosis I for so long. The proto-virus uses the functioning cell machinery to replicate itself. Because the cell is otherwise in an arrested state, normal DNA repair mechanisms do not seem to be activated. As a result the proto-virus can achieve multiple copies of itself at various points along the genome. It has been speculated that the number of virus copies is associated with all sorts of factors from a lack of vitamin D (which the monkeys get from dietary sources) to other intercurrent infections…"

"Given this background I'm sure those present could see our rationale for investigation ka-virus in women affected by MSAS. Our results have surpassed our wildest expectations.

"First of all we were lucky enough to obtain a biopsy of ovarian tissue from a number of women who had had a pregnancy previously diagnosed as MSAS. Routine RNA extraction techniques revealed the presence not of the ka-virrion sequence exactly but a very similar sequence. We named it ma-virus. It's a sort of joke" he admitted rather lamely.

"We looked for evidence that the ma-virus was being reverse transcribed into the genome but we didn't find any, although we did find that extended hormone treatment increased the numbers of ma-virus by 10 fold over a period of 8 weeks. That may not seem like much but remember it is an indolent type of virus. I think this is the link with the oral contraceptive pill identified in the previous lecture. Holding the follicles in the extended arrested state maintained by oral contraceptives stimulates viral replication whereas continued cyclical follicle development prevents it. But I digress." 

"We were initially very disappointed to not find active retroviral processes in the follicles. We considered abandoning the theory but then we were very fortunate to obtain a frozen embryo from a woman with a history of infertility due to tubal reasons. She had multiple terminations for MSAS and had entirely given up on pregnancy. When we checked, this embryo had all the genetic insertions we were looking for. We were at least able to offer this comfort to the patient that had it survived, this embryo would unquestionably have had MSAS also."

"We were jubilant that we were on the right track but we couldn't understand what the missing link was. The follicles showed proto-virus only but the embryo clearly had many viral insertions. What had happened?"

"We pursued a number of fruitless avenues of inquiry and then a graduate student proposed to look at sperm. The male does not play in role in the ka-virion life cycle in the lemurs so we hadn't thought to investigate this previously…"

"And there we found the answer. The partners of the women with MSAS are showing a complementary proto-virus able to actively reverse transcribe ma-virrion into the genome. It is the combination of the two which has proved so lethal to humanity and I agree with Harold Chorley by the way, that left unchecked, this could easily mean the end of the human species…"

"As I say, we just got these results very excitingly last night. We were looking for proto-virus for ma-virion. We did not find that sequence but we did find a persistent band of a similar size. This band, when sequenced revealed something that looks very like proto-ma-virion but when we put the two together in a cell, we found that instead of replicating itself, it replicates ma-virion only but at a much faster rate."

"So there is the solution to the puzzle! Using this knowledge we should be able to prevent further spread of MSAS. Diagnostic testing would have to involve an invasive procedure with PCR of an ovarian biopsy at present but I'm sure we could find some kind of serum marker soon. Vaccination would theoretically be possible although it would take much more research. A faster solution might be found through further research on the use of existing anti-retroviral therapies should provide some insights into therapy for those already affected. There is a future! Homo sapiens will survive!" he concluded on a rousing, triumphant note, raising his arms in the air. His smile was faintly ironic.

There was a moment of silence in the room and then everyone started talking at once. Media representatives surged forward. Flashes burst.

Bella felt Edward's arms tighten around her. She found that she had tears in her eyes. She turned and held him. When her vision cleared she became aware that people all over the room were crying and being comforted by one another.

Dubrovnic had now descended from the platform to be taken to the media room, where it seemed he was likely to remain for some time being bombarded with questions and generating endless sound bytes.

Bella continued to hang on to Edward. She felt absolutely drained and exhausted but amongst it she felt a flare of hope. For a start S&D could no longer be after her. Her oral contraceptive pill findings could be explained by the ovarian stasis that results from pill use which could allow more replication of ka-virions in the ovarian tissue. Her presentation today could have no influence on them whatsoever. She was free to go.

But there was the problem. She was free to go and here she was holding on to Edward. And she had a ticket on a flight that was leaving tonight.

Eventually the room began to empty. Bella slowly got up and pulled Edward to his feet. "I've got about 5 hours before I have to go" she said. "And I don't know about you but I've had enough of this place! Let's go!"


	19. Chapter 20

**I apologise that this took so long to complete. I also apologise for the shortness of this chapter. I had great plans to revise it extensively but that seems unlikely to happen.**

**I know this will appear to be a startling reversal but this conclusion to the story was destined even before I started wrtiting. My fault, for not taking Jacob's side enough. All apologies...  
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Oh my God, so what happened next?" Bella and Raymond were sitting together in an outdoor table at a little restaurant in East Melbourne. It was about ten days later and Bella had invited Raymond out to lunch to reward him for his small but vital role in the whole affair.

Bella related how she had found a note directing her to the lost property office where she found her computer but how her memory stick never had turned up. "Yes, yes but you and the ex-boyfriend? You're both really in love obviously! Did you just leave him at the airport? Are you going to see him again? Are you moving to the US? Tell me!"

Bella smiled and looked out at the blue sky over the distant profile of the MCG. She and Edward had said their goodbyes at the airport and then gone to their flights taking them to the opposite ends of the earth. She had cried half the way back but she there was no question in her mind that it was the right thing to do. If there was no future for her species and thus no consequences and all was futile then she and Edward had a future but in the real world where there were things to strive for and a future to believe in then no, she would not throw away everything she had built, hurt another human being horribly all for the probably temporary gratification of her own desires. She too had wondered how she would feel when she came home but somewhat to her surprise she had felt nothing but relief and gratitude. Relief that her home was still here and gratitude to it for being unchanged. She was uncomplicatedly glad to see Jacob waiting for her at the airport. She wanted nothing more than what she had.

She looked up at Raymond and wondered if she could explain this. She had to assume that her career was in trouble. When she next saw Professor Volturi he had merely smiled politely at her and hadn't mentioned her trip to San Francisco at all but she read in this his complicity. She could never accuse him publically. Even if she kept what she knew to herself, she thought that over time he would probably find some way to get rid of her. She found that she didn't really care about her career any more. She cared about the things that are essential to humans as an animal, a home and family. She smiled at Raymond. "You know, I think I might try to start a family this year" she said. "The timing just seems right somehow".

Raymond pulled a face at her. "Don't expect me to babysit" he warned.


End file.
